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FORD
10-07-2004, 06:53 PM
**MODERATOR'S NOTE: As Election Day closes in, I expect details of more known problems and potential problems with voting systems will be surface. Voting is a constitutional RIGHT, not a partisan issue, so I don't expect anyone should have a problem with this thread. Feel free to post issues here if they relate to actual problems with ballots, polling places etc., but please leave the "Michael Moore buys underwear" type of articles out of this. This is the most crucial election in American history, and it is your DUTY as an American to see that every American's right to vote is freely exercized and every vote counted**

FORD
10-07-2004, 07:10 PM
Last update: September 30, 2004 at 11:48 PM
Some bumps for Minnesota voter registration
Mark Brunswick, Star Tribune
October 1, 2004 REGISTER1001


Minnesota's new voter registration system is getting a failing grade for its performance from many of the state's county election officials less than five weeks before the Nov. 2 election.

The system logs people off, wipes out previously entered data and is so slow that counties already are straining their overtime budgets just to get information entered, the officials complained. And that could lead to some voters being turned away from the polls on Election Day, they said.

"Things that used to take minutes are taking hours. Things that took hours are taking days," Carlton County Auditor-Treasurer Paul Gassert told the Senate Elections Committee on Thursday.

Minnesota is one of only nine states nationwide to implement the new system for this election under a federal law designed to prevent problems that plagued the 2000 presidential election.

Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, whose office is coordinating implementation of the system, defended it at the Senate hearing, saying many counties report success with it. She also suggested that some counties may be at least partly responsible for their own problems because of technical shortcomings of their computer firewalls and capacity. Some counties, for instance, may temporarily lose their connection to the secretary of state's system if a video conference is eating up bandwidth at the same time.

"To come to this committee and say that the system is slow and that it's automatically the state's fault is not necessarily true," Kiffmeyer testified.

Both state and county officials said they doubted that the controversy over the Minnesota Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS) would directly affect vote tabulation on Nov. 2. Some, however, voiced concern that it could affect who comes to the polls and who might be permitted to vote.

In a request for comments conducted by the Minnesota Association of County Officers, 27 counties reported problems with the system, including slow performance and difficulty in using precinct finder functions. The centerpiece of SVRS is a $4 million computer system that connects all local voter rolls with state and federal databases and eases modification of inaccurate or outdated records. New voters and those with changed addresses must provide a driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number to verify their identity.

Many local officials praise the potential of the system, which they say may eventually be more efficient and user-friendly than the one it is replacing. But they say myriad bugs still need to be worked out.

"This is going to be a good system. But not this year," said Dorothy McClung, Ramsey County's chief election official. "Let's wait until it works."

Late arrival

Some states appear to be making a smooth transition to the new system, notably South Carolina and Kentucky, which, like Minnesota, already had statewide registration databases. Other states, such as West Virginia, have reported more difficulty, according to Dan Seligson, editor of electionline.org, a nonpartisan election monitoring group.

Elsewhere, college students, American Indians and others are complaining that new federal identification requirements will hamper efforts to get new voters to the polls.

The registration system was not the only contentious issue during the 50-minute Senate hearing. Kiffmeyer, who incurred the wrath of some senators when she arrived 25 minutes late because of a radio interview, was also grilled about complaints that her office had run out of voter registration cards last week.

Kiffmeyer's office had 1.25 million registration cards printed this year, but aggressive voter registration drives have consumed much of the supply. On Sept. 23, for instance, Kiffmeyer's office had 29,000 cards and gave out 22,000. She said another shipment of 22,500 cards has since come in and 250,000 more are expected by next week, making a total of about 2.5 million cards in circulation this year.

"It was just a couple days there where we took a little dip in the supply," Kiffmeyer said.

She said 2.8 million Minnesotans already are registered out of an eligible voting population of about 3.4 million, an enrollment of more than 80 percent that is second only to Maine's.

"Some of the problems I'm hearing about are wonderful, like running out of voter registration cards," said Sen. Dave Kleis, R-St. Cloud. "This is not going to be the catastrophe that some folks are portraying."

Staff librarian Sandy Date contributed to this report

Mark Brunswick is at

mbrunswick@startribune.com.

Sgt Schultz
10-07-2004, 07:14 PM
Originally posted by FORD
**MODERATOR'S NOTE: As Election Day closes in, I expect details of more known problems and potential problems with voting systems will be surface. Voting is a constitutional RIGHT, not a partisan issue, so I don't expect anyone should have a problem with this thread. Feel free to post issues here if they relate to actual problems with ballots, polling places etc., but please leave the "Michael Moore buys underwear" type of articles out of this. This is the most crucial election in American history, and it is your DUTY as an American to see that every American's right to vote is freely exercized and every vote counted**

News flash News Flash - Counting EVERY vote in our elections has NEVER happened try as we may. For Kerry to even say that he will make sure it happens is complete nonsense.

FORD
10-07-2004, 07:35 PM
FDLE Investigating Suspicious Florida County Voter Applications

POSTED: 11:08 pm EDT October 5, 2004
UPDATED: 11:09 pm EDT October 5, 2004

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating 1,500 voter registration forms received by the Leon County elections office that apparently were altered to register local students as Republicans.

County elections supervisor Ion Sancho said it was suspicious enough that the registration forms were all photocopies, but the new voters were also between the ages of 18-24, a group that often registers with no party affiliation.

"When we saw that all of these individuals were registered as Republicans, a buzzer went off," Sancho said.

Most were students at Florida A&M University, Florida State University or Tallahassee Community College. The office began calling the applicants, contacting a couple of dozen before deciding to turn the voter forms over to the FDLE.

"Once it became clear that their information did not jibe with the information on the application forms, that's when we decided to act," Sancho said. "The overwhelming majority of them had not selected the Republican Party as the party they wanted to be registered in."

The Leon County case is one of several being looked at around the state. In some cases, there are reports of bogus addresses, forms coming in with false information and registered voters who are being reregistered without their knowledge.

In St. Petersburg, former Mayor Charles Schuh received a letter saying he was ineligible to vote in the Aug. 31 primary because his registration application wasn't received on time. He later learned that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now had turned in a registration form with his correct name, address and phone number, but the wrong date of birth, final four digests of his Social Security number and gender.

"If I could find the guy I would make sure he was prosecuted for fraud and forgery. They could have stopped me from voting in the primary," Schuh, an attorney, said Tuesday. "That's wrong, dead wrong."

He was allowed to vote after showing elections officials his voter registration card and telling them the incorrect registration application wasn't submitted by him. Schuh said the registration form with his name was turned over to the state attorney's office along with 14 others that appear fraudulent.

State Attorney Bernie McCabe said all appeared to be turned in by ACORN.

"It does not appear right now that it can result in any impact on the election because the phony people aren't going to be voting, but it certainly creates a lot of work for everybody," McCabe said. "The supervisors of elections have enough on their plates than worrying about people turning in phony cards."

While he said ACORN is willing to help investigators, he said the problem appears to be caused by paid workers falsifying forms in order to make quotas.

"When you put quotas on people, you're asking for trouble," McCabe said.

Brian Kettenring, the head organizer for Florida ACORN, said, "We take these 1,500 cards as seriously as the 212,298 that we collected this past year. And for that reason we are working with the state attorney to insure the integrity of every registration.

"The law is the law and everybody needs to know they need to follow the law."

In Leon County, the alleged fraud could have meant the 1,500 applicants wouldn't be allowed to vote. Sancho, however, said he is placing the people on the voting rolls with no party affiliation.

"They will be eligible to vote in November," Sancho said. "We are not going to allow lawbreakers to profit by their actions."

Both major political parties criticized the alleged fraud.

"It's absolutely despicable, but not surprising," said Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox. "After the year 2000, we should do whatever we can to make sure we have a fair electoral process. Obviously we still have attempts to try to defraud the system."

In 2000, George W. Bush defeated Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes in a hotly disputed election. During the five-week recount that kept the world waiting to see who would be president, there were allegations that people were wrongly taken off voter rolls or turned away at the polls.

Republican Party spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher placed the blame for some of this year's registration problems on the many independent groups signing up new voters.

"It's unfortunate when you have all these groups from outside the state coming in here and trying to take over the elections process and they are motivated not by what's best for Florida, but by making money for themselves," she said.

Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.link (http://www.local6.com/news/3786610/detail.html)

ELVIS
10-07-2004, 08:00 PM
This thread is nothing more than FORD conconcting elaborate mystical conspiracies in preparation to lose the election...

Guess what FORD, we don't care what you think, or believe as far as this election goes...

Your input has been reduced, by your own doing, to mere comic relief...


:elvis:

Jesus Christ
10-07-2004, 08:30 PM
Gregory.... :rolleyes:

Big Train
10-07-2004, 08:41 PM
But somehow THIS is worth making a sticky out of...

FORD
10-07-2004, 08:54 PM
Originally posted by Big Train
But somehow THIS is worth making a sticky out of...

Yes it is. It concerns a serious threat to a contitutional right.

That is a non partisan issue and one of critical importance within the next few weeks.

LoungeMachine
10-07-2004, 11:37 PM
We all know how this administration planned for the Iraq invasion BEFORE they were even in office.

We all watched them steal the election

We all have watched them circumvent the Constitution, slander their critics, and deny any mistakes were made

Why on earth with everything on the line, should any of us think for one moment they won't try ANYTHING to win this very tight race.

By the way.....Hey warham, BigBloatedBrian, and Elvis, just WHY is it your "war president" is locked in such a tight battle to keep his job weeks before the election if he's doing such a great job?

This administration is a fraud, full of incompetent thugs, liars, and thieves. And the people they choose to advise them are no better


Perle
Chalabi
Abu Grahib
KKKarl Rove

LIES
SLANDER
BLACKMAIL


Good riddance

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 12:15 AM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
By the way.....Hey warham, BigBloatedBrian, and Elvis, just WHY is it your "war president" is locked in such a tight battle to keep his job weeks before the election if he's doing such a great job?



Because the liberal freaks like yourself have always had the bigger mouth in terms of the liberal media, protest marches, gay right support, abortion support, anti-war support, anti big business rallies, ect...

You name it, you liberals open your big fat mouths to complain about it...


:elvis:

FORD
10-08-2004, 01:38 AM
Please dudes, I'm serious about this.... Keep the partisan stuff in the other threads.

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 01:50 AM
hahaha...:D

Warham
10-08-2004, 06:49 AM
As FORD insisted, I'll keep my correct partisan comments out of this thread.

Sgt Schultz
10-08-2004, 09:19 AM
Democrat Criminal Operatives Leave Bush and Cheney Off Ballot!! Bastards!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++=
Bush, Cheney Left Off Mo. County Ballots

Thu Oct 7,10:01 PM ET

VAN BUREN, Mo. - Officials in one Missouri county are reprinting absentee ballots for the Nov. 2 general election after discovering that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were left off.

The ballots were mailed beginning Sept. 21, and Carter County Clerk Becky Gibbs said several voters noticed the oversight.

"We are rectifying it," she said. "There was no intent to leave them off."

Fewer than 500 of the erroneous ballots were sent out, and some have already been returned.

Replacement ballots will be sent to everyone who requested an absentee ballot along with a letter explaining the error.

Terri Durdaller, spokeswoman for the Secretary of State, said that if absentee voters who previously returned a ballot send a new one, it will replace the previous one. If they don't return a new ballot, their first one will be counted.

"The key is just to make sure everybody does get the changed ballot," Durdaller said.

Ballots that other voters will use Nov. 2 have not been printed yet.

Gibbs said the cost to print replacement absentee ballots should be minimal.

FORD
10-08-2004, 09:42 AM
If I recall, there were issues in several states of Junior & Dick being legally ineligible for the ballot because they delayed their official nominations until September. Was MO one of those states?

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 09:54 AM
If that is true, it is rediculous...

FORD
10-08-2004, 10:28 AM
Originally posted by ELVIS
If that is true, it is rediculous...

It's ridiculous to have a reasonable time limit before an election so official ballots can be printed?

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 10:55 AM
Yes, for a sitting first term president, yes...

FORD
10-08-2004, 10:59 AM
Originally posted by ELVIS
Yes, for a sitting first term president, yes...

The sitting pResident and his party should be aware of the law and not deliberately break it. If they schedule their conventions past the deadline for blatantly political purposes, then they should accept the consequences under the law.

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 11:24 AM
What "blatantly political purposes" might you be referring to ??

LoungeMachine
10-08-2004, 11:33 AM
Originally posted by FORD
The sitting pResident and his party should be aware of the law and not deliberately break it. If they schedule their conventions past the deadline for blatantly political purposes, then they should accept the consequences under the law.

So much for keeping the "partisan" posts out of this thread.

MY post was to shine the light on the fact that THIS admin. will stop at nothing to steal another election.

Please let me know where the out of bounds markers lie so I can keep within your guidelines.

Frankly, NOTHING about this election can be non partisan.

FORD
10-08-2004, 11:37 AM
Originally posted by ELVIS
What "blatantly political purposes" might you be referring to ??

They scheduled their convention in NYC in September. Uhhhh......... gee that's a tough one.... :confused:

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 11:44 AM
When and where would you suggest they have a GOP convention ??

..and what difference does it make ???

FORD
10-08-2004, 11:53 AM
Originally posted by ELVIS
When and where would you suggest they have a GOP convention ??

..and what difference does it make ???

When they expect several states to alter existing laws, so they can exploit a tragedy which they caused (at the very least) through their own gross negligence, it makes a lot of difference.

And I think they should have had their convention in Baghdad ;)

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 12:02 PM
I almost suggested that you might suggest Iraq...

FORD
10-08-2004, 12:21 PM
Originally posted by ELVIS
I almost suggested that you might suggest Iraq...

Well, they're the ones who insist it's a "safer place without Saddam Hussein" :D

Now can we keep this thread on topic?

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 12:21 PM
BTW, no voting problems observed yet today...

LMAO!


:elvis:

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 12:22 PM
How's that ??

FORD
10-08-2004, 01:11 PM
Stay tuned.... I'm sure there will be many more stories in the coming weeks. At least I hope so, in order to inform both voters and state officials (at least those NOT complicit in the fraud) in order to resolve the problems in time.

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 01:39 PM
Originally posted by FORD
(at least those NOT complicit in the fraud)


What fraud ??

Warham
10-08-2004, 04:48 PM
Good grief.

You libs just can't believe the fact that the people of the Republic would ACTUALLY vote for a Republican candidate?

I heard Kerry's lawyers are already getting the paperwork necessary to file for recalls.

Good grief.

FORD
10-08-2004, 05:57 PM
Originally posted by Warham
Good grief.

You libs just can't believe the fact that the people of the Republic would ACTUALLY vote for a Republican candidate?

I heard Kerry's lawyers are already getting the paperwork necessary to file for recalls.

Good grief.

Please leave partisanship out of this thread......this is a recording....BEEEP

Warham
10-08-2004, 06:17 PM
You stop the partisanship first.

The very nature of this thread has the smell of the DNC to it.

Are you as worried about corruption on the left-side of this coming election, FORD?

FORD
10-08-2004, 06:23 PM
Originally posted by Warham
You stop the partisanship first.

The very nature of this thread has the smell of the DNC to it.

Are you as worried about corruption on the left-side of this coming election, FORD?

What could we "corrupt" when the BCE controls everything?

The DNC has nothing to do with this thread. They don't tell me what to do, and truthfully, I have very little use for the current "leadership" of the organization. Hopefully that will change for the better under the Kerry administration. There's a lot of talk about Howard Dean being named DNC chairman. That would be a HUGE step in the correct direction, as far as I'm concerned.

My focus here is on those who are interfering with the constitutional right to vote. In the last election, the obvious offenders in that regard was the BCE wing of the Republican party. That is a matter of record. If Democrats did it, it would be just as wrong, but I don't realistically see anybody who wanted to vote for Junior being turned away.

Warham
10-08-2004, 06:33 PM
Howard Dean? I'd love to see that, and I'm serious. It'd definately push the center of the party farther left.

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 06:46 PM
SPIN!!!


:rolleyes:

FORD
10-08-2004, 06:47 PM
Why do you guys always confuse Howard Dean with Dennis Kucinich. Kooch was the "leftist" - and a Hell of a great guy with some awesome ideas. But unfortunately, this country's not ready for them.

Howard Dean would have been considered a conservative 20 years ago. These days he passes for common sense centrist. The FAUXian media tried to tag him as "left" just because he opposed a senseless war based on lies, and signed a common sense civl unions bill as Governor of Vermont - after his state's highest court left him no option but to act somehow (the alternative would have been calling it "marriage").

These things don't make anyone a hardcore liberal except in the world of Busheep fiction.

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 06:54 PM
Howard Dean is a crazy nut job with crazy radical ideas...

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 06:56 PM
Originally posted by FORD
Howard Dean would have been considered a conservative 20 years ago.


That's a FORD Country partisan LIE!

..and you know it...

FORD
10-08-2004, 07:20 PM
No, it's a FORD Country honest truth about how both parties, and as a result, the entire country, have veered so far to the right that we are about to leave the road of democracy entirely, and wreck into the ditch of global fascism :(

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 07:27 PM
No way dude, you worry too much...

Go to your Beercyclopedia thread, have a cool lager and get ready for the debates...;)

FORD
10-08-2004, 07:35 PM
Originally posted by ELVIS
No way dude, you worry too much...

Go to your Beercyclopedia thread, have a cool lager and get ready for the debates...;)

Nah, no lager..... I'm thinking this is gonna be a Stout or Porter kinda night. Unless the winter brews are in yet. Seems like a few of them actually were released in October last year. I'd reference my old thread if Von's board hadn't been wiped :(

ELVIS
10-08-2004, 07:41 PM
Last time I had a beer was May last year...:)

diamondD
10-08-2004, 11:00 PM
Originally posted by FORD
What could we "corrupt" when the BCE controls everything?

The DNC has nothing to do with this thread. They don't tell me what to do, and truthfully, I have very little use for the current "leadership" of the organization. Hopefully that will change for the better under the Kerry administration. There's a lot of talk about Howard Dean being named DNC chairman. That would be a HUGE step in the correct direction, as far as I'm concerned.

My focus here is on those who are interfering with the constitutional right to vote. In the last election, the obvious offenders in that regard was the BCE wing of the Republican party. That is a matter of record. If Democrats did it, it would be just as wrong, but I don't realistically see anybody who wanted to vote for Junior being turned away.


I told you of actual known voter fraud that I witnessed last time and of accounts in the local paper of charges of DEMOCRATIC violaters, but as usual, you ignored them so that you could pretend it doesn't happen both ways.

DLR'sCock
10-10-2004, 04:56 PM
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FLORIDA_VOTING_DEMOCRATS?SITE=NYSTA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT



Democrats Challenge Fla. Voting Policy
The Associated Press

Friday 08 October 2004

Tallahassee, Fla. - The state Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit accusing Florida's secretary of state of violating federal law when she told elections supervisors to reject incomplete voter-registration forms.

The party asked a judge to order Glenda Hood to reverse her instructions to the state's 67 counties.

Hood's office told counties they should disqualify voters who failed to check a box confirming they are U.S. citizens, even if they signed an oath on the same form swearing they are. She and other state officials maintain that state and federal laws require the box to be checked.

"The Secretary of State's Office says they want to err on the side of the voter, yet they want to disenfranchise people," party Chairman Scott Maddox said.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday, the same day the NAACP sued a county elections supervisor in federal court, alleging the county disenfranchises blacks by having only one early voting site in an area where fewer minorities live

The NAACP wants Volusia County elections chief Deanie Lowe to open another such site by Oct. 18 in the eastern part of the county, where more blacks live. The only site now is in DeLand, the county seat.

"We will not allow them to disenfranchise," said Beverlye Neal, executive director of the Florida National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

State law requires county elections officials to offer early voting starting 15 days before an election. Votes can be cast at elections offices, but if other sites are opened, they must be spread out evenly if possible.

Lowe said that meant the county also would have to open two other sites, something she called "humanly impossible," given the preparations needed for the Nov. 2 vote.

It was unclear Friday when a judge would hear the case.

In the challenge to the voter-registration policy, some counties have said they had no plans to follow Hood's policy as they process the flood of forms coming in ahead of Monday's registration deadline.

The Democrats' lawsuit marks the fourth time since August that the party has taken Hood and her office to court. The Democrats successfully challenged plans by the state to reopen qualifying for a state Senate seat in southwestern Florida but were thwarted in their effort to keep Ralph Nader off the presidential ballot.

The Democrats were expected to argue in federal court Friday against the state law that requires provisional ballots to be cast in a voter's precinct.

-------

DLR'sCock
10-11-2004, 06:09 PM
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/09/ohio_voter_intimidation/index.html


GOP Dirty Tricks in Ohio?
By Lisa Chamberlain
salon.com

Saturday 09 October 2004

Voter registration is exploding in the swing state, but a ruling by the obstructionist Republican secretary of state may result in thousands not voting.

On Monday, the final day of voter registration in Ohio, the Board of Elections in Cleveland had a line out the door. "I've never seen anything like this in my life," said John Ryan, head of the Cleveland AFL-CIO. "We did a voter registration drive four years ago. We turned in 14,399 new registration forms, and we were pleased with that. This time, there are about 100,000 newly registered voters. That blows my mind. This is not Arizona with a growing population. People are leaving this area, not coming in."

That people are moving to other states is due in no small part to the fact that Cleveland is now the poorest big city in the country, with a poverty rate of 31.3 percent, according to a recent Census report. The rest of Ohio isn't faring much better, with poverty rates in Cincinnati at 21.1 percent, Toledo at 20.3 percent and Columbus at 16.5 percent. For those who can't leave, voting seems to have taken on an urgency not seen in many years, if not decades.

With the registration deadline past, the focus for the numerous groups in Ohio that are working to mobilize voters has now shifted to making sure those voters get to the polls and, once they get there, are able to vote. Conventional wisdom has always held that the hard part is getting people signed up and to the polls. But with millions of dollars being spent by groups such as America Coming Together, MoveOn PAC, 21st Century Democrats and others on such efforts, a more important problem may be getting those votes counted -- a fear given definite shape thanks in no small part to Ohio's obstructionist Republican secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell.

While there had been a lot of hand-wringing among elected officials, voting rights groups and the public over electronic voting, Ohio passed a law in May requiring that all new machines have a paper receipt by 2006. This, of course, won't occur until after the 2004 presidential election, but the change has had a deterrent effect on a switch to electronic voting machines. According to Petee Talley, who is chairing the Ohio Voter Protection Coalition, made up of labor, civil rights, voting rights, retiree and community organizations: "Ninety-five percent of Ohio's voters will be voting on the same equipment they did the last time."

So, befitting the state's anachronistic Rust Belt economy, tactics have turned to good old-fashioned voter suppression and intimidation rather than high-tech tampering. In a recent campaign stop in Cleveland, Sen. John Kerry suggested that such intimidation was already underway. His comments came on the heels of Blackwell's backpedaling on his decision to enforce an archaic law requiring that all new registrations be on postcard-weight paper. But it seems Blackwell may have several more tricks up his sleeve.

"What's happening in Ohio," says Talley, "is that the secretary of state has issued a statement saying that provisional ballots should not be issued if voters are in the wrong polling location." With tens of thousands of newly registered voters, confusion about where to go is likely. Withholding provisional ballots -- which the Help America Vote Act, passed in 2002 in the wake of the 2000 election debacle, specifically mentions as an alternative voting method when valid registration is in doubt -- will result in many people simply not voting.

We "sent a letter to the secretary of state saying that it's a violation of the Help America Vote Act," says Talley. Not getting an adequate response, the Ohio Voter Protection Coalition filed a lawsuit on Tuesday. The Ohio Democratic Party has already sued on this issue, and a judge is expected to issue a ruling on that suit by Oct. 15.

Provisional ballots might seem like small potatoes in the scheme of things. But one professor at Case Western Reserve University -- site of the recent vice presidential debate in Cleveland -- has crunched some numbers and he's not at all convinced this issue is of little consequence.

Using data from the 2000 election, the professor, Norman Robbins, calculates conservatively that as many as 13,000 Clevelanders will have to use a provisional ballot as a result of clerical and other errors. The typical discard rate for provisional ballots means that nearly 2,300 of those will be invalidated. But this doesn't include all the people who show up at the wrong polling place and don't get a provisional ballot at all. Multiply this by the eight urban areas around Ohio and the potential for disenfranchisement is high. Considering that Al Gore lost Ohio by 165,000 votes and Ralph Nader (who will not be on the ballot) took 117,857 votes, it could impact the election not just in Ohio, but affect the outcome of the national race.

"Who does this provisional ruling affect most?" asks Robbins. "People who move. Census data shows that low-income people are 90 percent more likely to move. If you're poor, you're twice as likely to have to vote provisionally. On top of that, when they get a provisional ballot, they're likely to encounter [poll workers] who give them unclear information on a complex form. That's already difficult.

"Now, if you're in the wrong precinct, don't bother voting because your provisional ballot is going to be thrown out, even if it was a clerical error that got you into provisional world. These are the people who are most likely going to have two jobs. They're not going to be able to go to another poll. They might have kids in day care. They may have no car. This ruling disproportionately targets one part of the Ohio population." And they are, needless to say, most likely Democratic voters.

Ohio's secretary of state was also sued because 21 counties were wrongly informing ex-felons that they had no right to vote. According to Robbins, the secretary of state's office agreed to inform all ex-felons of their voting rights in time for the registration deadline, but then backed out based on a "distorted" interpretation of the law.

And then there is the specter of hanging chads if the race in Ohio is close enough to trigger a recount. Sixty-eight counties in Ohio (out of

88) will vote using punch card ballots. (In fact, it was little noted at the time, but Cleveland also had its very own butterfly ballot in 2000, and it was as poorly designed as Theresa LePore's in Palm Beach County, Fla.). Again using the 2000 election as a guidepost, Robbins says punch card ballots have nearly a 4 percent error rate. With some 300,000 voters in Cleveland, that's nearly 8,000 lost votes, factoring in the turnout rate. He is critical of Blackwell for doing very little to educate voters about how to use punch card machines, and points to Los Angeles as having undertaken a model educational campaign that greatly reduced the error rate.

"In 2002, the Federal Election Commission said that these error rates were unacceptable," says Robbins. Blackwell "knew the majority of counties would be using punch cards, and he'd done nothing to improve that situation until a week ago. What they're doing now is good, but it's very late in the day and he had to be badgered into it."

Blackwell has defended himself and his office by saying that these criticisms did not surface until recently. But Robbins says the voter coalition he's been working with sent letters to Blackwell on July 29 and again on Sept. 2, pointing out the problems and making suggestions.

Finally, of course, there is the specter of voter intimidation, something that -- until Florida 2000 -- some people didn't believe ever happened in the United States, even though it occurred not only during the civil rights movement but has been going on covertly since Reconstruction after the Civil War.

"As someone who's worked in Democratic politics in Ohio, I've seen these tactics done for years," says Mike Casey, who runs Tigercomm, a media consulting firm in Cleveland, and is working with a newly established group called Citizens Against Un-American Voter Intimidation. "Every election cycle, you hear after the fact about the white sheriffs who sat there for five hour with guns holstered who are there to intimidate. They're there to shave 1 percent off. With all this voter registration activity going on, some people don't want those people to vote."

But the Ohio Democratic Party, which has been keeping the heat on Blackwell, doesn't think voter intimidation is going to be much of a problem this year. "There have been claims of that in Cincinnati and other places," says Dan Trevas, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. "But this is going to be such a heavily attended and watched election, the ability to intimidate voters is going to be very difficult, especially in places that really matter, like large cities."

Given a recent alarming report by the NAACP and People for the American Way, the Ohio Democratic Party's cavalier attitude may be misplaced. Citing intimidation tactics outlined in the report, such as sending security teams to minority polling places, wrongly demanding I.D.'s and taking photos of voters, the New York Times concluded, "The suppression of minority votes is alive and well in 2004, driven by the sharp partisan divide across the nation. Because many minority groups vote heavily Democratic, some Republicans view keeping them from registering and voting as a tactic for victory -- one that has a long history in American politics."

"Basic democratic rights are being tampered with by political thugs," says Casey. "Think about that. It's the most un-American thing you can possibly do, besides spy for al-Qaida. So we're trying to pay heightened, advanced attention to things that rarely surface until Election Day. It's after everything is decided [that] some evidence comes to light, and there's some reporting by an exhausted press corps, but it's already over. If you don't call attention to it beforehand, to hold people accountable, then this activity pays."

-------

Jump to TO Features for Tuesday October 12, 2004

DLR'sCock
10-11-2004, 06:15 PM
Gee, repukes being motha' fuckas that attempt to disenfranchise a citizens right to vote???


Motha' Fuckas are scum fucking cocksuckas....

DLR'sCock
10-11-2004, 06:17 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/politics/campaign/11voters.html?th



Among Black Voters, a Fervor to Make Their Ballots Count
By Jim Dwyer
The New York Times

Monday 11 October 2004

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Her bus was coming, but Charlotte Marshall had not yet finished talking about what mattered to her in the election. Social Security and health insurance, definitely. The Vietnam War, absolutely not. And she had still more to say.

The campaign for president has entered its final leg crackling with rare energy on the streets, in workplaces and in homes, perhaps with no greater vigor than among black Americans like Mrs. Marshall, who works for Stein Mart, a discount store.

It was nearly time for Mrs. Marshall to board, so she spoke quickly, definitively and passionately about the bleakness of Iraq. Finally, she turned to the voting process.

No matter whom she ends up choosing - maybe Senator John Kerry, said Mrs. Marshall, or perhaps President Bush, to untangle his Iraqi knot - she will work Election Day as a poll watcher. "What happened in 2000 got me into it," she said.

Like Mrs. Marshall, many African-Americans are speaking about the fundamental act of voting this year with rekindled fervor, throwing a high-wattage backlight behind the issues and personalities of the campaign. The disqualified ballots, excluded voters and contentious ending of the 2000 election - when black precincts in Florida had votes rejected at three times the rate of white precincts - have formed a galvanizing memory. "We feel betrayed," said Rod Owens, 22, a student at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. "We're looking for revenge."

Mr. Owens, active in a young Democrats group on his campus, put the matter more bluntly than most, but the determination to vote and make it count appears to cross boundaries of age, class and geography. African-Americans, for four decades the most reliable reservoir of Democratic support in presidential elections, now are also part of a torrent of new voter registrations in swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and elsewhere.
The Rev. James Sampson, a Baptist minister in Jacksonville, Fla., urged John Kerry last month to "fight till every vote in Florida is counted." Photo credit: Chris Garlington for The New York Times


Aware of how essential black voters' turnout is for his campaign, Mr. Kerry attended services yesterday at two black churches in Florida. With the Revs. Jesse L. Jackson and Al Sharpton at his side, he told worshipers at his second stop, a Baptist church in Miami, that he had a team of lawyers, led by African-Americans, poised to respond to any charges of disenfranchisement. "We have an unfinished march in this nation," he said, invoking the civil rights struggle.

Here in Jacksonville, as the Oct. 4 registration deadline approached, new voters in black neighborhoods were signing up at a pace two-thirds faster than in 2000. In Philadelphia, election officials report the greatest surge of registrations in 21 years, resulting in more than 70,000 new voters added to the rolls since April, with growth heaviest in African-American sections. In Ohio, new registrations in Democratic strongholds, many of them African-American areas, have increased 250 percent over 2000.

In interviews here in north Florida, in southwest Philadelphia and elsewhere, at bus stops, on porches, in sleek law offices, some two dozen African-American voters spoke about the broad band of issues that define their personal stakes in this campaign: the war in Iraq and what it means to a son or grandson in the military; the economy and how it shapes a bricklayer's week; the tax code and its effect on an independent businessman's prospects; and the seats of aging Supreme Court justices, watched warily by a generation of business executives, many of whom began their climb to prosperity in a society freshly opened by the federal bench.

"I have a son with the military, in a combat-ready unit," Mrs. Marshall said. "I'm scared to death every day. I'm disappointed about the Bush program. I was all for it when he said we were going to fight terror. But they know for a fact where that 9/11 attack originated, and it wasn't Iraq. If they had concentrated all that effort in Afghanistan, maybe by now they would have him, that other fool" - meaning Osama bin Laden.

The voters interviewed - habitual Democrats, for the most part - spoke about John Kerry with polite reserve, as if he were a distant cousin, more rumor, so far, than actual family relation. "I guess he's all right, but he's no Bill Clinton, downright homey-like," said Eddie West, a maintenance worker with the Salvation Army in Jacksonville.

Black voter participation has been increasing in recent presidential elections, and 57 percent of eligible black voters turned out in 2000, according to the Census Bureau. In 2000, Mr. Bush received one vote from African-Americans for every nine cast for Al Gore, the lowest share for any Republican since 1964, according to exit polls.

Both Mr. Bush and the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ed Gillespie, have pledged to do better, and Republican officials are emphasizing home ownership and business opportunities before black audiences.

While both parties maintain they hope for a heavy vote from African-Americans, Democrats say history shows that would be to their benefit.

"We will equal the 2000 turnout or do better," said Bill Lynch, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Kerry. "The community is not going to vote for George Bush in any real numbers. But we've got to get them excited about John Kerry."

Over the last 15 years or so, a rising black middle class has dispersed from cities into integrated suburbs, creating a demand for political messages that reflect the diverse circumstances of African-Americans.

During a town hall meeting with Mr. Kerry in Jacksonville last month, Robert and Anna Lee sat impassively in the rear, offering mild applause, not rising to join ovations. Even so, both Lees said they had no reluctance about supporting Mr. Kerry, who is seen by some as stiff and distant.

"Would I want to go have coffee with him?" Mr. Lee said, shrugging. "That kind of thing doesn't bother me. I'm just not satisfied where I see us going on the international scene."

The Lees moved to Florida from Michigan after Mr. Lee retired from the Internal Revenue Service. Mrs. Lee said she was astounded by Florida's problems in the 2000 election. "It seemed to have affected our people more," she said.

When Mr. Kerry took questions, the Rev. James Sampson, a Baptist minister, spoke of what many in his community perceived to be a feeble effort in north Florida by Mr. Gore's camp in the recount of 2000. About 27,000 votes were disqualified in Duval County, manyfrom black neighborhoods in Jacksonville.

"Will you fight till every vote in Florida is counted?" Mr. Sampson asked.

"I will fight," Mr. Kerry said, "until the last dog dies." The crowd roared.

At a private gathering on Sept. 20 in midtown Manhattan with a small group of black executives and lawyers, Mr. Kerry heard discussion of "race and poverty, minority businesses, health care," said Gordon J. Davis, a partner with the law firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae who once served as parks commissioner in the Koch administration. "The message was, these issues are very important to us, but we want you to win. We can debate those after you win.''

Mr. Davis continued: "The next two, three, four appointments to the Supreme Court will be made by the next president. The people in that room had the benefits of growing up in the civil rights revolution."

In southwest Philadelphia, Terrance Carter and Thomas Robinson, replacing a brick wall in a backyard, took a break to chat about the campaign. Both men said they had turned to construction work after they lost jobs - Mr. Carter with food service for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Mr. Robinson with a pharmaceutical packing company.

Mr. Carter scoffed at assertions that Mr. Bush's tax cuts had spurred the economy. "Bush is a spoiled rich boy," he declared. "It's all about a lack of jobs. I don't see no growth; I don't see nothing to be stimulated."

An Army veteran, Mr. Carter said he saw the invasion of Iraq as tantamount to "strong-arming people" and said he thought Mr. Kerry would be able to persuade the United Nations to take on a bigger role in Iraq.

"You don't hear about bin Laden at all any more," Mr. Carter said. "Couple more weeks, near to the election, you'll hear about threats."

Mr. Robinson nodded, and said: "You hear code orange. Or code red."

"Make it up as you go along," Mr. Carter said. "As long as Bush is in office, everybody's a threat."

At his home on Hazel Avenue in Philadelphia, Larry Moore, a purchasing consultant, said that he was concerned about Iraq, the environment, the Supreme Court and the tax code but that Mr. Kerry's plans seemed vague. "Now that we're in Iraq, can Kerry do anything to get us where we need to be faster?" Mr. Moore asked.

On taxes, he said: "I think the code needs to be more equitable. But people should not be penalized for working hard or because they end up doing well."

Across Hazel Avenue, June Fike, who is retired from the Campbell Soup Company, spoke about the unsettled affairs in Iraq.

"If you look at the war news, it's just -- " She paused, shaking her head, searching her mind for the words to match her distress. "I get heart trouble from it. I got a grandson, 22, he had a birthday last week. He is in the National Guard. They said it was for home security, so he signed up, but they changed it. Now they got him down in Fort Hood, getting ready to ship him out."

Leon Williams, a friend who was listening to Mrs. Fike, confessed to a soft spot for the president.

"I like Kerry, but Bush, he ain't no bad guy," Mr. Williams said. "He just got us in a jam."

"Jam?" said Mrs. Fike. "That's what you call it, a jam? We got in something looks like we can't get out of."

Kimberlyn Short, a voting canvasser from America Coming Together, a group aligned with the Democrats, approached Mrs. Fike and learned that both her 89-year-old mother and 94-year-old father would be voting this year. When Ms. Short asked if she would need help getting them to the polls, Mrs. Fike gave a firm no. "You look after some others who don't have anyone," Mrs. Fike said. "I don't care if it snows six feet high, we're getting out of here to vote."

ELVIS
10-11-2004, 10:22 PM
Now lookie here!

Disenfranchysin' is one of dem Jessie Jackson woids...

I don't be trustin' dat foo...

Satan
10-12-2004, 11:26 AM
Here in Hell, we have no voting problems. Everyone is allowed to vote freely.

Of course I'm the only one on the ballot, but then nobody ever said Hell was a Demon-cracy :D

Ally_Kat
10-12-2004, 12:49 PM
7 U.S. Groups Ask U.N. for Vote Observers
Mon Oct 11, 9:41 PM ET
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - Seven American activist groups asked the United Nations on Monday to provide international observers for next month's presidential election.


A petition delivered to the U.N. Economic and Social Council said that only the U.N. can "give us recourse to international bodies beyond those within our own national and state governments" in case of a repeat of the problems seen in the 2000 election, which President Bush won after a protracted ballot fight in Florida.


Grace Ross of the Economic Human Rights Project, based in Somerville, Mass., said the non-governmental groups decided to seek action from the Economic and Social Council, known as ECOSOC, after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan turned down a request for international observers from 13 members of Congress, led by Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Tex. Annan said the U.N. needed an invitation from the U.S. government, not Congress.


Ross claimed that while governments need to go through the U.N. General Assembly, non-governmental organizations could request observers through ECOSOC. If its 54 elected member nations approve, the ECOSOC president could then ask Annan to send observers, she said.


The United States would have to grant permission to any observers that the ECOSOC wanted to send.


The petition "strongly supports" the presence of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 55-nation security group invited by the Bush administration to monitor the election. Bush faces Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry.


But the seven groups say it's not clear that the European observers will have the force of international law behind them since they are invited guests.


Other organizations signing the petition include the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, based in Philadelphia; the National Welfare Rights Union and the Michigan Welfare Rights Union, based in Detroit; the Independent Progressive Politics Network, headquartered in Bloomfield, N.J.; Seacoast Peace Response, based in Portsmouth, N.H.; and the North Shore Massachusetts chapter of the Alliance for Democracy.

ELVIS
10-12-2004, 03:34 PM
Hahaha...

Ally_Kat
10-13-2004, 11:39 AM
I-Team investigation uncovers voter registration fraud
written by: Deborah Sherman (I-Team Reporter) and Nicole Vap (Executive Producer Investigative)


DENVER - With just 21 days left until an election in which every vote will count, the 9News I-Team has uncovered voter registration fraud that could cause chaos on Election Day for hundreds, possibly thousands of Colorado voters.

9News has discovered a record number of fraudulent voter-registrations across the state. Secretary of State Donetta Davidson tells 9News she is concerned about what the I-Team has uncovered and wants those responsible prosecuted. "It has just gone rampant," she told reporter Deborah Sherman in an interview Monday afternoon.

Most of the fraud has come from registration drives, where people at grocery stores or on the streets ask you to sign up. 9News has learned many workers have re-registered voters multiple times by changing or making up information about them. 9News has documented 719 cases of potentially fraudulent forms at county election offices show fraudulent names, addresses, social security numbers or dates of birth in Denver, Douglas, Adams, Boulder and Lake counties. Information from other counties is still coming in.

Some voter registration application forms are completely bogus. Others belong to legitimate voters, who have had one or two facts changed that could affect their registration when they show up at the polls November 2nd. Tom Stanislawski registered to vote six years ago. But this summer, someone signed him up again and changed his party affiliation. "My concern would be I'd walk in November 2nd and be unable to vote," he said.

Some of the registration drive workers earn $2 per application or about $10 an hour. One woman admitted to forging three people's names on about 40 voter registration applications. Kym Cason says she was helping her boyfriend earn more money from a get-out-the-vote organization called ACORN or Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. ACORN works with low or moderate-income families on housing issues. Cason said her extra registrations earned her boyfriend $50.

Gerald Obi says workers pressured him to keep registering to vote so they too could earn extra cash. When asked how many times he had registered this year, Obi said, "about 35 times."

ACORN's state director said they are victims of the fraud as well and told 9News the group is cooperating with local investigators. Ross Fitzgerald says the group has fired workers for the fraud. "Our goal is to register as many people as we can," said Fitzgerald. "If they're fraudulent, that hurts our numbers."

Clerk and Recorders from several counties met Monday with Secretary of State Donetta Davidson to discuss this problem, and the problem of felons registering to vote. "I have to question whether we should be allowing people to accept money for voter registration," said Douglas County Clerk and Recorder Carole Murray.

Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson agreed and said she will be looking at ways to reform the system.

Ally_Kat
10-13-2004, 11:41 AM
George Knapp, Investigative Reporter
Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed

(Oct. 12) -- Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

So the people on those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are sadly mistaken. We attempted to speak to Voters Outreach but found that its office has been rented out to someone else.

The landlord says Voters Outreach was evicted for non-payment of rent. Another source said the company has now moved on to Oregon where it is once again registering voters. It's unknown how many registrations may have been tossed out, but another ex-employee told Eyewitness News she had the same suspicions when she worked there.

It's going to take a while to sort all of this out, but the immediate concern for voters is to make sure you really are registered.

Call the Clark County Election Department at 455-VOTE orclick here to see if you are registered.

The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate

Ally_Kat
10-13-2004, 11:44 AM
I'll say this before it's a jump on the Republicans --

Those people you see trying to get voters to register at the supermarkents? They are private interests. There have been instances here where shit like this has happened. The group collects whatever party they want and submits them. I know our office used to get a lot of angry calls that we didn't let them vote when we never recieved their registration card.

If you want to register, do it straight thru the board.

Keeyth
10-13-2004, 08:19 PM
I'm voting absentee just so there is a physical record... ...am I the only one who is a little untrusting of these electronic voting machines? I mean, all it takes is one Bush hacker to sway the entire election... ...they stole it illegally last time, what makes anyone think they won't do it again? And with the security of computer systems these days, (especially Windows-based) it would be even easier to accomplish...

John Ashcroft
10-14-2004, 07:58 PM
I have a problem to report Ford, since you are the self appointed election monitor... You ready?

OK, here it is...

There are far too many stupid people voting. And they all seem to be voting Democrat. Surely as a DLRARMY.com election monitor, you can fix the problem, no?

Ally_Kat
10-15-2004, 12:09 AM
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU OCT 14, 2004 10:58:04 ET XXXXX

DNC ELECTION MANUAL: CHARGE VOTER INTIMIDATION, EVEN IF NONE EXISTS

**World Exclusive**

The Kerry/Edwards campaign and the Democratic National Committee are advising election operatives to declare voter intimidation -- even if none exists, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.

A 66-page mobilization plan to be issued by the Kerry/Edwards campaign and the Democratic National Committee states: "If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a 'pre-emptive strike.'"


http://drudgereport.com/dnc.jpg
HIGHLIGHT OF ELECTION DAY MANUAL, NOVEMBER 2004

The provocative Dem battle plan is to be distributed in dozens of states, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

One top DNC official confirmed the manual's authenticity, but claimed the notion of crying wolf on any voter intimidation is "absurd."

"We all know the Republicans are going to try to steal the election by scaring people and confusing people," the top DNC source explained.

Developing...

-----------------------------------------------------------
Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2004
Not for reproduction without permission of the author

FORD
10-15-2004, 01:00 AM
This is exactly the kind of partisan bullshit that I didn't want in this thread. Drudge's batting average hasn't been too good lately.

FORD
10-15-2004, 01:05 AM
Originally posted by John Ashcroft
I have a problem to report Ford, since you are the self appointed election monitor... You ready?

OK, here it is...

There are far too many stupid people voting. And they all seem to be voting Democrat. Surely as a DLRARMY.com election monitor, you can fix the problem, no?

If it were up to me, everyone would have to pass a mandatory IQ test before voting, with a modified set of questions that included politically relevant subject matter.

Of course then Junior would be unable to vote for himself ;) But then so would most of the Busheep on this board. Yourself, Ally, and Schultz being the possible exceptions.

ELVIS
10-15-2004, 11:19 AM
Originally posted by FORD
This is exactly the kind of partisan bullshit that I didn't want in this thread. Drudge's batting average hasn't been too good lately.

Everything you post is partisan bullshit!

Drudge's batting average is excellent!

DLR'sCock
10-15-2004, 06:28 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html?oref=login





Block the Vote
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Friday 15 October 2004

Earlier this week former employees of Sproul & Associates (operating under the name Voters Outreach of America), a firm hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters, told a Nevada TV station that their supervisors systematically tore up Democratic registrations.

The accusations are backed by physical evidence and appear credible. Officials have begun a criminal investigation into reports of similar actions by Sproul in Oregon.

Republicans claim, of course, that they did nothing wrong - and that besides, Democrats do it, too. But there haven't been any comparably credible accusations against Democratic voter-registration organizations. And there is a pattern of Republican efforts to disenfranchise Democrats, by any means possible.

Some of these, like the actions reported in Nevada, involve dirty tricks. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired an Idaho company to paralyze Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts by jamming the party's phone banks.

But many efforts involve the abuse of power. For example, Ohio's secretary of state, a Republican, tried to use an archaic rule about paper quality to invalidate thousands of new, heavily Democratic registrations.

That attempt failed. But in Wisconsin, a Republican county executive insists that this year, when everyone expects a record turnout, Milwaukee will receive fewer ballots than it got in 2000 or 2002 - a recipe for chaos at polling places serving urban, mainly Democratic voters.

And Florida is the site of naked efforts to suppress Democratic votes, and the votes of blacks in particular.

Florida's secretary of state recently ruled that voter registrations would be deemed incomplete if those registering failed to check a box affirming their citizenship, even if they had signed an oath saying the same thing elsewhere on the form. Many counties are, sensibly, ignoring this ruling, but it's apparent that some officials have both used this rule and other technicalities to reject applications as incomplete, and delayed notifying would-be voters of problems with their applications until it was too late.

Whose applications get rejected? A Washington Post examination of rejected applications in Duval County found three times as many were from Democrats, compared with Republicans. It also found a strong tilt toward rejection of blacks' registrations.

The case of Florida's felon list - used by state officials, as in 2000, to try to wrongly disenfranchise thousands of blacks - has been widely reported. Less widely reported has been overwhelming evidence that the errors were deliberate.

In an article coming next week in Harper's, Greg Palast, who originally reported the story of the 2000 felon list, reveals that few of those wrongly purged from the voting rolls in 2000 are back on the voter lists. State officials have imposed Kafkaesque hurdles for voters trying to get back on the rolls. Depending on the county, those attempting to get their votes back have been required to seek clemency for crimes committed by others, or to go through quasi-judicial proceedings to prove that they are not felons with similar names.

And officials appear to be doing their best to make voting difficult for those blacks who do manage to register. Florida law requires local election officials to provide polling places where voters can cast early ballots. Duval County is providing only one such location, when other counties with similar voting populations are providing multiple sites. And in Duval and other counties the early voting sites are miles away from precincts with black majorities.

Next week, I'll address the question of whether the votes of Floridians with the wrong color skin will be fully counted if they are cast. Mr. Palast notes that in the 2000 election, almost 180,000 Florida votes were rejected because they were either blank or contained overvotes. Demographers from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission estimate that 54 percent of the spoiled ballots were cast by blacks. And there's strong evidence that this spoilage didn't reflect voters' incompetence: it was caused mainly by defective voting machines and may also reflect deliberate vote-tampering.

The important point to realize is that these abuses aren't aberrations. They're the inevitable result of a Republican Party culture in which dirty tricks that distort the vote are rewarded, not punished. It's a culture that will persist until voters - whose will still does count, if expressed strongly enough - hold that party accountable.


-------

DLR'sCock
10-15-2004, 06:29 PM
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/9915462.htm



TO has launched a voter rights page to protect America's right to vote. If you believe your right or the rights of others in your community are being denied send the information here: voters.rights@truthout.org.
We will get the TruthOut.
Also see below:
Voter Fraud Alleged •
KGW Report Prompts Oregon Voter Fraud Investigation •

Go to Original

GOP Paid Firm Faces Voter Fraud Charge
By Laura Kurtzman
The San Jose Mercury News

Thursday 14 October 2004

Ex-worker says he saw Demos' forms trashed.
Democrats in Nevada charged in a lawsuit Wednesday that a company paid by the Republican National Committee destroyed voter-registration forms they had collected from Democratic voters.

Similar allegations have surfaced in Oregon and West Virginia, where the group has been active.

The Nevada allegations were reported Tuesday night by KLAS-TV in Las Vegas about Eric Russell, a former employee of the Republican-funded group, Voters Outreach of America, which also goes by the names America Votes and Project America Votes.

In an affidavit filed with the lawsuit, Russell said he was told to ask prospective voters, "Who would you vote for in the next election?" He said he was told to register only those who supported President Bush.

"I personally witnessed my supervisor at VOA, together with her personal assistant, destroy completed registration forms that VOA employees had collected," said Russell. "All of the destroyed registration forms were for registrants who indicated their party preference as 'Democrat.' "

Russell said he registered both Democrats and Republicans and, as a result, his pay was docked. According to the lawsuit against the Clark County Registrar of Voters, he provided copies of destroyed registration forms he retrieved from his supervisor's garbage can.

Russell repeated the allegations in a telephone interview Wednesday with the Mercury News.

GOP-Funded Outreach

Voters Outreach of America is run by Nathan Sproul, an Arizona GOP political consultant whose firm, Sproul & Associates, has been paid nearly $500,000 by the Republican National Committee to do voter outreach.

Sproul denied Russell's allegations in an interview with the Associated Press and said Russell was a disgruntled employee who had been fired. Sproul did not return calls from the Mercury News.

Wednesday, the Republican National Committee e-mailed affidavits from two people who worked at Voters Outreach of America denying any voter-registration forms had been destroyed. They said all forms were turned in to county recorders' offices or the Nevada Republican Party.

"The Republican Party has a zero-tolerance policy for anything that smacks of impropriety in registering voters," said Jim Dyke of the Republican National Committee. He accused Democrats of indulging in "selective outrage" that ignored wrongdoing by Democratic groups, but did not provide specifics.

Sproul's group also has been active in Oregon, where state officials Wednesday said they were investigating a man featured in a Portland television report saying he "might" destroy Democratic registration forms. It was not clear for whom the man worked.

Lawsuits alleging electoral irregularities also have been filed in Florida. Wednesday, the state Supreme Court heard arguments in a suit seeking to require election officials to count provisional ballots regardless of where they are cast.

Tuesday, unions and voting-rights groups sued to stop Florida officials from disqualifying more than 10,000 incomplete registration forms, accusing the state of overly restrictive rules that disproportionately hurt minority voters.

Manual Recount Issue

Also Tuesday, plaintiffs in another suit met with aides to Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood to discuss how counties with touch-screen voting should conduct manual recounts. The state had banned recounts in such counties, but an administrative law judge, responding to a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, threw out that rule in August.

Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for Hood, a Republican who was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, said the lawsuits were politically motivated and were eroding voter confidence.

"They are questioning every single law that we are following and that we are complying with, federal or state," she said. "And I think it's inappropriate for them to be doing this at the 11th hour."

The lawsuit regarding voter-registration forms, filed in federal court in Miami, stems from Hood's recent recommendation to throw out forms on which registrants did not check a box indicating they are U.S. citizens, even if they signed an oath at the bottom of the form swearing they are.

It charges that while some registrants fixed their incomplete forms before the Oct. 4 deadline, elections officials did not always process them in time, and did not let other registrants know their forms were flawed. It charges Hood and elections supervisors in Broward, Duval, Miami-Dade and Orange counties with violating federal election law and the Voting Rights Act.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Go to Original

Voter Fraud Alleged
By Adrienne Packer
The Las Vegas Review-Journal

Thursday 14 October 2004

Group accused of trashing Democrats' registration forms.
Federal and state authorities are looking into Democratic Party allegations that a voter registration group hired by the Republican Party tossed out registration forms signed by Democrats.

The FBI and state officials are reviewing comments by Eric Russell, a former employee of Voter Outreach of America, who claims to have witnessed supervisors throwing away Democrats' voter registration forms.

Destruction of the forms is a federal crime, according to Clark County attorneys.

"We are gathering preliminary information and we'll discuss that information with the U.S. Attorney," said FBI Special Agent David Schrom. "Based on what his guidance is, we'll see whether there is a potential federal violation and whether we can initiate an investigation."

Secretary of State Dean Heller also said Wednesday he is reviewing state and federal laws to determine which might have been violated.

Russell, who was paid $8.50 an hour to register voters, said he was fired last month after protesting his supervisors' destruction of Democratic forms.

"I didn't think it was right to register Republicans when there are others out there that should also be allowed the opportunity to register," Russell said Wednesday. A supervisor "right in front of me was tearing up the Democratic registration forms."

A Chandler, Ariz., political consulting firm, Sproul & Associates, was hired by the Republican National Committee to register Republicans in Nevada, according to the Associated Press. In Nevada, a hotly contested swing state in the presidential election, Voter Outreach carried out the registration effort.

Nathan Sproul, head of Sproul & Associates and a former director of the Arizona Republican Party, denied Voter Outreach workers tore up forms, the Associated Press reported. He called Russell a disgruntled employee.

But Russell isn't the only former Voter Outreach employee to express concerns about the method used to collect Republican voter registration forms. And Sproul's tactics have also been called into question in Oregon, where officials are investigating his group's voter registration efforts.

Tyrone Mrasak said when he worked for the organization the daily goal was to register 18 Republican voters. If they reached their goal in two hours, for example, they could leave and still be paid for eight hours of work, Mrasak said.

"We didn't get credit for forms we brought back marked Democrat," he said.

Mrasak said he often loitered in front of homeless shelters and rewarded homeless people with cigarettes for registering Republican.

"As long as they have an address, they can register," Mrasak said. "If they were looking to bum a cigarette I'd say, 'I'll trade you a cigarette if you sign this.' "

Democrats said they have done no investigation of the allegations themselves and have based their claims on a local television news report that aired Tuesday.

Their claims are the latest in a series of allegations from both parties that either Democrats or Republicans are trying to taint November's already contentious general election.

"Republicans are trying to steal this election," Democrat Steven Horsford said during a Wednesday press conference held to respond to Russell's comments.

"This is a horrible thing that has happened in this state," said Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who also serves as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee's Black Caucus. "It's something we will not tolerate."

Brian Scroggins, chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, said the Republicans have "zero tolerance" for voter registration fraud. He added that Democrats have "selective outrage" over such matters.

"Some groups they've been involved with in the past have had allegations of voter fraud and they weren't outraged at that time," Scroggins said. "We are not out there trying to disenfranchise anybody or keep people from going to the polls."

In Oregon, officials opened their investigation on the heels of a local television report in which a paid-per-registration canvasser for Sproul & Associates said he had been instructed only to accept registrations from Republicans, and that he "might" destroy those from Democrats, the Associated Press reported.

News of the alleged destruction of Democratic registration forms reached Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, prompting Democratic National Committee chairman Terence McAuliffe to fire off a letter to his Republican counterpart. In it, he demanded to know why Republicans are funding "an organization that is ripping up voter registration forms of Democrats."

"We are deeply concerned these reports of Republican National Committee funded felonious activities ... could serve to discourage all voters from voting because of concerns of problems with their ballot," McAuliffe wrote in a letter to Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

McAuliffe urged Gillespie to refrain from paying voter registration organizations such as Voter Outreach until investigations are completed.

Voters who show up at the polls, but do not appear on registration rolls, may request to vote provisionally. Provisional votes are counted in federal races and only in case of a close election.

If provisional voters bring voter registration receipts with them to the polls it increases the likelihood their votes will be counted, according to county election officials.

County officials said if provisional votes come into play, the battle over which provisional votes count will likely end up in court.

Wednesday's denouncement of what Democrats labeled political "trickery" came one day after they decried Republican Dan Burdish's challenge to 17,000 Democratic voters.

Burdish, a Republican businessman and former state party executive director, challenged the voters in the 3rd Congressional District, arguing that as "inactive voters" they do not live at the address associated with their voter registration.

The accusations from both parties could lead to lawsuits should either John Kerry or President Bush win the state by a small margin.

The parties might be casting doubt on the registration process to lay the groundwork for lawsuits, said David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"It doesn't surprise me they're trying to get this out there, put the doubt out there so they have some basis for a legal challenge," Damore said. "American political history is rife with these types of activities. It's unfortunate, but it goes to the issue of how intense this campaign is being fought in the sense people care about the outcome and that might lead them to bend the rules."

The Democrats have set up a phone line to answer questions about infringements on voters' rights. Voters can call 877-WE-VOTE-2 if they have questions.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Go to Original

KGW Report Prompts Oregon Voter Fraud Investigation
KGW News and The Associated Press

Wednesday 13 October 2004

Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and Attorney General Hardy Myers said Wednesday they plan to investigate allegations uncovered by KGW that paid canvassers in Portland may have destroyed voter registration forms.

"I have never in my five years as secretary of state ever seen an allegation like the one that came up tonight - ever," Bradbury said of a KGW report that aired Tuesday night on NewsChannel 8 at 11. "I mean, frankly, it just totally offends me that someone would take someone else's registration and throw it out."

KGW interviewed Mike Johnson, 20, a canvasser collecting signatures in downtown Portland, who said he was instructed to only accept Republican registration forms. He told a KGW reporter that he "might" destroy forms turned in by Democrats since he was being paid by the Republican party.

In addtion, Bradbury said there were other complaints that have come from outside the Portland metro area about improper voter registration practices. Those will also be part of the probe.

Johnson told KGW he works for a group that conducted voter registration efforts in Nevada before coming to Oregon. That group is believed to be a Chandler, Arizona-based consulting firm called Sproul & Associates , which is now the target of a voter fraud investigation by Nevada authorities.

KLAS-TV in Las Vegas recently interviewed a former employee of the private voter registration organization who said hundreds - perhaps thousands - of Democratic registration forms there had been destroyed.

Eric Russell, who worked for a Sproul & Associates group called Voter Outreach of America, said he had personally witnessed his boss take out eight to ten Democratic registration forms from a pile and shred them in Nevada.

Sproul & Associates is run by Nathan Sproul, a former head of the Republican Party in Arizona who has subcontracted with the Republican National Committee to do voter outreach efforts.

Sproul has denied any shredding occurred in Nevada, saying that "we registered anyone who wanted to register."

Back here in Oregon, Douglas County Clerk Barbara Nielsen said she had received a complaint from voters who said canvassers working for Sproul & Associates had tried to push them into registering as Republicans, saying otherwise the canvassers wouldn't get paid for their efforts.

Additionally, Nielsen said she had gotten calls from Roseburg-area voters who said that canvassers from the Sproul group had implied that their cards wouldn't be turned in if they registered as Democrats.

Bradbury said that in Oregon, it is a class-C felony, punishable by five years in jail or a $100,000 fine, to alter a voter registration form, or to throw one away. He added that canvassers can't turn away a voter because of his or her party affiliation.

The source of the problem seems to stem from paying canvassers per registration, Bradbury observed.

"In Oregon, we have outlawed paying per signature on initiative petitions because it just inspires fraud," Bradbury said. "I don't see any reason to believe that a bounty system on voter registrations is any less likely to inspire fraud, so we need to investigate."

This isn't the first time that Sproul & Associates have surfaced in Oregon. Last month in Medford, a librarian was approached by a group claiming to be affiliated with the progressive, nonpartisan America Votes organization, with a request to set up registration booths in the library.

When librarian Megan O'Flaherty probed into the group, she found that instead, they were part of Sproul & Associates, and had nothing to do with America Votes.

Kevin Looper, the director of the Oregon chapter of America Votes, said lawyers for the group are looking into the situation.

"We take this extremely seriously," he said. "When you are engaged in voter registration, you are obligated to turn in every card."

Other stories of unorthodox voter registrations have also surfaced throughout the state.

In Eugene, several University of Oregon students were approached by canvassers circulating a petition to crack down on child molesters and told they must register as Republicans in order for their signatures to "count."

"They told me that by registering as a Republican, I would be helping people fight child molesters," said Elizabeth Thygeson, 19, who had already registered as a Democrat. "I didn't appreciate that. It wasn't exactly the truth."

The voter fraud accusations in Oregon and Nevada have put the GOP on the defensive.

The Republican National Committee issued a statement Wednesday that said its party has "a zero-tolerance policy for anything that smacks of impropriety in registering voters."

And Rory Smith, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party in Oregon, denounced the alleged misconduct saying, "We do not condone this type of behavior."

-------

Jump to TO Features for Friday October 15, 2004

FORD
10-18-2004, 04:09 PM
Problems Crop Up in Fla. Early Voting
3 hours ago

By JILL BARTON, Associated Press Writer


WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - With memories of 2000 and the state's bitter fight over ballots still fresh, Floridians began casting votes Monday and within an hour problems cropped up.

In Palm Beach County, the center of the madness during the recount four years ago, a Democratic state legislator said she wasn't given a complete absentee ballot when she asked to opt for paper instead of the electronic touch-screen machines. Several voting sites in Broward County had problems with laptops connected to elections headquarters. And a brief computer system crash in Orange County paralyzing voting in Orlando and its immediate suburbs.

A steady flow turned out Monday morning at more than a dozen sites in Palm Beach County. Patrick Flanagan, who went to the county's election headquarters to cast his ballot, said he voted early because he wanted to avoid the long lines expected on Election Day. He said he's voted on the touch-screen machines once before, and both times have gone "very smoothly."

"I'm a computer-phobe, and it seemed easy enough to me," said Flanagan, who added that he had no concerns about his vote being counted.

Steve Perez, 44, said he went early to cast a "protest vote" for Ralph Nader.

"What's important is that you vote. I didn't want to get in all the hoopla with all the turnout in Election Day," said Perez, a substitute teacher.

While backers touted early voting for people like Flanagan as a way to avoid long lines on Nov. 2, some have criticized the concept, saying it increases opportunities for fraud without significantly boosting participation.

Some groups urged Florida voters to ask for paper absentee ballots because of concerns over the state's new touch-screen voting machines and any potential recounts. Voters Monday morning could choose either method.

State Rep. Shelley Vana said the paper absentee ballot she was given at a Palm Beach County site was missing one of its two pages, including the proposed amendments to the state constitution. She said election workers were indifferent when she pointed out the oversight.

"There was absolutely no concern on the part of the folks at the Supervisor of Elections Office that this page was missing. This is not a good start. If there are incomplete ballots out there, I can't imagine I would be the only one getting it," she said.

County elections supervisor Theresa LePore did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Early voting also gets under way Monday in Texas, Colorado and Arkansas. Other key states this year have already begun in-person voting, including Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and New Mexico. Balloting by mail is under way in Oregon, the only state in the nation that has done away with polling booths altogether.

Early voting and touch-screen equipment were introduced in Florida after the 2000 election, in which this crucial state decided the result by only 537 votes and introduced topics such as butterfly ballots and hanging chads to the national debate. The early voting continues at a limited number of sites in each county until Election Day, when regular polling places will be open.

Protesters gathered outside the Duval County election supervisor's office Monday because the county, the state's most populous, had only one voting site. A city attorney said it said it was too late to open new sites, even though the city council had committed more money to the idea.

Broward County had 14 voting sites but several of them had trouble linking polling station laptop computers with the supervisor's office, said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood. The computers are used to confirm voter eligibility. Workers used paper lists and called the supervisor's office in Fort Lauderdale to verify eligibility, Nash said.

Broward elections officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

In Miami-Dade County, about 150 people gathered Monday morning for a rally led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. Some people carried homemade signs that said "Early Voting Counts" and "Every Vote Matters."

Both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry arranged campaign swings through the Sunshine State over the weekend in efforts to capitalize on the early voting.

Even as voters turned out, lawyers were going to court in Fort Lauderdale to argue a lawsuit over the lack of paper backup on the state's electronic machines.

___

On the Net:

Florida Department of State: http://election.dos.state.fl.us

ELVIS
10-18-2004, 04:17 PM
Originally posted by FORD

While backers touted early voting for people like Flanagan as a way to avoid long lines on Nov. 2, some have criticized the concept, saying it increases opportunities for fraud without significantly boosting participation.




That's right...

FORD
10-18-2004, 06:20 PM
Originally posted by ELVIS
That's right...

Unless the ballots remain sealed until 8:00 PM on 11/2 I would have to agree that the potential is there....especially in Florida where the system is inherently corrupt.

FORD
10-18-2004, 11:46 PM
http://www.cincypost.com/news/images/largeballot101804.jpg

Kerry left off some absentee ballots
By Barry M. Horstman
Post staff reporter

Some absentee ballots distributed to Hamilton County voters do not include the name of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, local election officials confirmed today.

Because of a printing error -- limited, election officials believe, to only a few ballots in the Forest Park area -- absentee ballots recently mailed out exclude the Democratic presidential ticket of Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards.

Click on photo for larger image"It's a screw-up," said Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Elections. "This just feeds the paranoia that's out there. The tragic thing is that even though I think we will have a very fair and accurate count here, this will cause people to question the accuracy of our operation."

Although election officials believe only two voters have received the inaccurate ballot to date, Burke said he is worried that the mix-up "will open us up to all kinds of questions and concerns." He also conceded that some may question whether the problem is, indeed, limited to only a few ballots.

"I'm happy we're talking about a very small number," Burke said. "But it's something that never should have happened."

One of the voters who received the inaccurate ballot said today she "just couldn't believe it" when she opened her absentee ballot envelope and noticed that Kerry's name was missing.

"I knew enough to see something was wrong," said the voter, who asked not to be identified. "But you wonder whether others maybe didn't notice it before they sent their ballots back."

The printing error is the second major mistake to plague Hamilton County's absentee ballots for the Nov. 2 election.

Earlier this month, officials scrapped 17,500 absentee ballots after Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell ordered presidential candidate Ralph Nader off the ballot because of invalid signatures on his candidacy petitions. Those ballots also had been tainted by the elections board's discovery that the punch positions of Hamilton County Engineer Bill Brayshaw and one of the candidates for Ohio Supreme Court had been switched.

Nader's removal from ballots throughout Ohio also figures into the new problem that caused Kerry's name to be dropped from some absentee ballots in Hamilton County. In seeking to remove Nader's name from some local ballots, Hamilton County officials inadvertently struck Kerry's name instead.

On the flawed ballots, the words "Candidate removed" appear on the line where Kerry's name should appear. On the line below, Nader's name -- where "Candidate removed" actually should have been printed -- remains.

John Williams, director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections, explained that there are 72 different ballots countywide covering different political jurisdictions. For each of those 72 ballots, the order in which candidates' names are listed is rotated 10 times, Williams said.

The problem with Kerry's name being dropped occurred with one rotation on a ballot used in Forest Park. Although 22 absentee ballots in that area have gone out to voters so far, election officials believe that only two of them are the flawed ballots without Kerry's name, Williams said.

Williams was contacted over the weekend by one of the voters who received an inaccurate ballot and gave her a corrected ballot. Election officials today were trying to contact the rest of the 22 people who received the particular style of ballot at issue to find the one person they know also has a ballot without Kerry's name.

"Mistakes happen in every election," Williams said. "I'm not happy about it, but we're trying to do what we can to correct it. This time, you're under their magnifying glass, so it gets more attention."

What is especially frustrating, Williams said, is that the mistake actually had been caught by the election board's proof readers. But when a broken copier forced officials to use an old copying machine, the old, mistaken ballot format without Kerry's name accidentally was printed, he said.

"It's unfortunate it happened," Williams said. "But I don't think there's any reason for people to worry about the accuracy of the election."


Publication Date: 10-18-2004

And if you buy that lame-assed explanation, I've got a beachfront condo in Tucson for sale..... :rolleyes:

diamondD
10-18-2004, 11:56 PM
Well how hard is it to figure out that if your candidate isn't on there, take it back and get a new one. If you are so stupid that you send it in, it's your own fault. Same as if Bush was missing, except it would get noticed more. ;)

diamondD
10-18-2004, 11:57 PM
Originally posted by FORD
If it were up to me, everyone would have to pass a mandatory IQ test before voting, with a modified set of questions that included politically relevant subject matter.

Of course then Junior would be unable to vote for himself ;) But then so would most of the Busheep on this board. Yourself, Ally, and Schultz being the possible exceptions.

Excuse me? :mad: ;)

FORD
10-19-2004, 02:11 AM
Originally posted by diamondD
Well how hard is it to figure out that if your candidate isn't on there, take it back and get a new one. If you are so stupid that you send it in, it's your own fault. Same as if Bush was missing, except it would get noticed more. ;)

It's an absentee ballot, Jeff. So what if it's been mailed to a soldier from Cincy who is in Iraq? One who doesn't want to vote for his own execution. Is he going to have time to send the bad ballot back and get a proper one in it's place at this late date?

FORD
10-19-2004, 02:13 AM
Originally posted by diamondD
Excuse me? :mad: ;)

Yeah, you're right.... I shouldn't have made any exceptions, because intelligent Republicans should know better than to vote for that idiot :(

Guitar Shark
10-19-2004, 10:32 AM
I thought you wanted to keep all the political bullshit out of this thread Dave?

diamondD
10-19-2004, 03:47 PM
Only everyone else's, as usual.

And I do agree with the part about if it's a military vote, Dave. Just not if it's local.

"Voting for his own execution" That's mind-numbingly dumb political rhetoric.

Keeyth
10-19-2004, 08:25 PM
Originally posted by diamondD

"Voting for his own execution" That's mind-numbingly dumb political rhetoric.

That, or exceptionally perceptive clarity of mind...

...you say tomato...

FORD
10-21-2004, 11:51 AM
Originally posted by diamondD
Only everyone else's, as usual.

And I do agree with the part about if it's a military vote, Dave. Just not if it's local.

"Voting for his own execution" That's mind-numbingly dumb political rhetoric.

Well, the soldier in question wouldn't be in Iraq if not for Junior's stupid invasion, correct?

Sgt Schultz
10-21-2004, 02:30 PM
Are Felons Illegally Voting in Wisconsin?

(Madison) Voter fraud in Wisconsin? That's what local Republican leaders are claiming.

Organized voter registration drives inside Dane and Racine County jails, nearly 200 inmates already registered to receive absentee ballots. But apparently no one checked to see if any of the inmates are convicted felons which makes them ineligible to vote.

Rich Graber, Chair of the Republican Pary of Wisconsin, says at least one convicted felon has already submitted an absentee ballot and Republicans are crying "foul."

Graber says, "Needless to say we are deeply troubled by convicted felons committing still another felony by voting. We all know how close this election is going to be an devery vote counts a great deal."

Kathleen Falk, Dane County Executive, says, "I don't think there is a great worry. There hasn't been, historically in our country, in people violating that law."

According to reports, election supervisors in Racine and Madison don't plan to check the inmates' alleged felony status.
__________________

Care to guess which party Kathleen Fraud is a member of???????? She is a fucking joke.

DLR'sCock
10-23-2004, 12:51 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/politics/campaign/23vote.html?


Big G.O.P. Bid to Challenge Voters at Polls in Key State
By Michael Moss
The New York Times

Saturday 23 October 2004

Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.

Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections.

Election officials in other swing states, from Arizona to Wisconsin and Florida, say they are bracing for similar efforts by Republicans to challenge new voters at polling places, reflecting months of disputes over voting procedures and the anticipation of an election as close as the one in 2000.

Ohio election officials said they had never seen so large a drive to prepare for Election Day challenges. They said they were scrambling yesterday to be ready for disruptions in the voting process as well as alarm and complaints among voters. Some officials said they worried that the challenges could discourage or even frighten others waiting to vote.

Ohio Democrats were struggling to match the Republicans' move, which had been rumored for weeks. Both parties had until 4 p.m. to register people they had recruited to monitor the election. Republicans said they had enlisted 3,600 by the deadline, many in heavily Democratic urban neighborhoods of Cleveland, Dayton and other cities. Each recruit was to be paid $100.

The Democrats, who tend to benefit more than Republicans from large turnouts, said they had registered more than 2,000 recruits to try to protect legitimate voters rather than weed out ineligible ones.

Republican officials said they had no intention of disrupting voting but were concerned about the possibility of fraud involving thousands of newly registered Democrats.

"The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters - I call them ringers - have created these problems," said James P. Trakas, a Republican co-chairman in Cuyahoga County.

Both parties have waged huge campaigns in the battleground states to register millions of new voters, and the developments in Ohio provided an early glimpse of how those efforts may play out on Election Day.

Ohio election officials said that by state law, the parties' challengers would have to show "reasonable" justification for doubting the qualifications of a voter before asking a poll worker to question that person. And, the officials said, challenges could be made on four main grounds: whether the voter is a citizen, is at least 18, is a resident of the county and has lived in Ohio for the previous 30 days.

Elections officials in Ohio said they hoped the criteria would minimize the potential for disruption. But Democrats worry that the challenges will inevitably delay the process and frustrate the voters.

"Our concern is Republicans will be challenging in large numbers for the purpose of slowing down voting, because challenging takes a long time,'' said David Sullivan, the voter protection coordinator for the national Democratic Party in Ohio. "And creating long lines causes our people to leave without voting.''

The Republican challenges in Ohio have already begun. Yesterday, party officials submitted a list of about 35,000 registered voters whose mailing addresses, the Republicans said, were questionable. After registering, they said, each of the voters was mailed a notice, and in each case the notice was returned to election officials as undeliverable.

In Cuyahoga County alone, which includes the heavily Democratic neighborhoods of Cleveland, the Republican Party submitted more than 14,000 names of voters for county election officials to scrutinize for possible irregularities. The party said it had registered more than 1,400 people to challenge voters in that county.

Among the main swing states, only Ohio, Florida and Missouri require the parties to register poll watchers before Election Day; elsewhere, party observers can register on the day itself. In several states officials have alerted poll workers to expect a heightened interest by the parties in challenging voters. In some cases, poll workers, many of them elderly, have been given training to deal with any abusive challenging.

Mr. Trakas, the Republican co-chairman in Cuyahoga County, said the recruits would be equipped with lists of voters who the party suspects are not county residents or otherwise qualified to vote.

The recruits will be trained next week, said Mr. Trakas, who added that he had not decided whether to open the training sessions to the public or reporters. Among other things, he said, the recruits will be taught how to challenge mentally disabled voters who are assisted by anyone other than their legal guardians. In previous elections, he said, bus drivers who had taken group-home residents to polling places often helped them vote.

Reno Oradini, the Cuyahoga County election board attorney, said a challenge would in effect create impromptu courts at polling places as workers huddled to resolve a dispute and cause delays in voting. He said he was working with local election officials to find ways of preventing disruptions that could drive away impatient voters and reduce turnout.

State law varies widely on voter challenges. In Colorado, challenged voters can sign an oath that they are indeed qualified to vote; voters found to have lied could be prosecuted, but their votes would still be counted. In Wisconsin, it is the challenger who must sign an oath stating the grounds for a challenge.

"You need personal knowledge," said Kevin J. Kennedy, executive director of the Wisconsin State Elections Board. "You can't say they don't look American or don't speak English."

National election officials said yesterday that Election Day challenging had been done only sporadically by the parties over the years, mainly in highly contested races. In the bitterly contested 2000 presidential election, they said, challenges occurred mainly after Election Day.

The preparations for widespread challenging this year have alarmed some election officials.

"This creates chaos and confusion in the polling site," said R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, an international association of election officials. But, he said, "most courts say it's permissible by state law and therefore can't be denied."

In Ohio, Republicans sought to play down any concern that their challenging would be disruptive.

"I suspect there will be challenges," said Robert T. Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party. "But by and large, people will move through quickly. We want to make sure every eligible voter votes." He added, "99.9 percent will fly right by."

Challengers on both sides said they were uncertain about what to expect. Georgiana Nye, 56, a Dayton real estate broker who was registered by the Republicans as a challenger, said she wanted to help prevent fraud and would accept the $100 for the 13 hours of work and training.

For the Democrats in Dayton, Ronald Magoteaux, 57, a mechanical engineer, said he agreed to be a poll watcher out of concern for new voters. "I think it's sick that these Republicans are up to dirty tricks at the polls," Mr. Magoteaux said. "I believe thousands of votes were lost in 2000, and I want to make sure that doesn't happen in Ohio."

Democrats said they were racing to match the Republicans, precinct by precinct. In some cities, like Dayton, they registered more challengers than the Republicans, election officials said. But in Cuyahoga County, where the Republicans said they had registered 1,436 people to challenge voters, or one in every precinct, Democrats said they had signed up only about 300.

The parties are also preparing to battle over voter qualifications in Florida, where they had until last Tuesday to register challengers. In Fort Myers, Republicans named 100 watchers for the county's 171 precincts, up from 60 in 2000. But Democrats registered 300 watchers in the county, a sixfold increase.

Nader Loses Ohio Ballot Bid

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 22 (AP) - The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday rejected an effort by Ralph Nader to get his name on the ballot, most likely ending his chances in the state for the Nov. 2 election.

Mr. Nader wanted the court to force election boards to review their voter registration lists, a process he said could have led to the validation of petitions to place him on the ballot. The court ruled 6-1 against him.

James Dao contributed reporting from Ohio for this article, and Ford Fessenden and Anthony Smith from New York.

DLR'sCock
10-23-2004, 12:52 PM
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/04296/399788.stm


Students Have Parties Switched by Bogus Petitions
By Dennis B. Roddy
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Friday 22 October 2004

Registration changed to Republican without consent
Scores of college students in Pennsylvania and Oregon have had their voting registrations switched by teams of canvassers circulating bogus petitions and, in some cases, partially concealed voter registration forms students were requested to sign.

The canvassers have visited campuses asking students to sign petitions advocating lower auto insurance rates, medical marijuana or stricter rape laws, according to elections officials.

After signing their names, the students were pressured into registering with the Republican Party by being told that their signatures otherwise would be invalid, or they were asked to fill out the signature and address portions of blank voter registration forms as proof of citizenship. In multiple instances, students already registered to vote have had their registrations changed without their consent, elections officials said yesterday.

Petition canvassers in Pennsylvania apparently did not identify themselves, although one told a University of Pittsburgh student that he was being paid by the Republican Party.

In another instance, the head of the Oregon Students Association said a canvasser at Portland State University told him he was with Project America Votes, a Republican-backed registration effort.

Elections officials yesterday said the switch in party registration would not affect the students' eligibility to cast ballots for the candidates of their choice on Nov. 2, although it could determine the party primaries in which they could take part in the future. Several said they were mystified why the canvassers would bother to change registrations, although one told a student in Oregon that he was receiving $12 for each new Republican registration.

Students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a branch campus of Montgomery County Community College told officials they were tricked into filling out blank voter registration forms, listing their names and addresses when they signed a petition advocating the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

"I'm pretty sure that they weren't students," said Erik Strobl, an IUP student who said he signed the petition. Strobl said the canvasser then asked him to put his signature and address on a voter registration card. Although Strobl had already registered to vote as a Democat, he did so when he was told his signature was needed to verify his status as a voter.

Several days later, Strobl received a mailed notification that his party registration had been switched to Republican.

IUP appeared to have been hardest hit by the scam. County voter registration director Donna Hoover said as many as 400 registration suspect forms have arrived in her office. Most of them, she said, changed the registered party of students who had signed up to vote just days earlier during a registration drive by two other groups, America Coming Together and VIP.

"Most of the students had registered Democrat the day before," Hoover said. "I've talked to the sheriff."

Markings on many of the forms appeared to be in the same handwriting, she said.

"I kind of thought there was something odd. I don't even know which party would have done it," Hoover said. "These people circled the different spots [on the form] for the people to fill in."

In Allegheny County, elections director Mark Wolosik referred another case, involving a Squirrel Hill college student, to county detectives. Ruairi McDonnell said his registration was switched from Independent to Republican by someone who circulated a petition to lower auto insurance rates for young drivers on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh last month.

McDonnell said the man instructed him to fill out portions of a voter registration form, although McDonnell told the man he already had registered to vote.

"He then told me I would have to register as a Republican because 'that's how we get our funding.' I said I would not. He kept the form which contained only my name and address and certainly did not indicate I was a Republican," McDonnell said in a letter to the Allegheny County Department of Elections.

Several days later, McDonnell received notice from the elections department that he had changed his registration from Independent to Republican.

In Montgomery, an identical scam took place in September, when students at the Blue Bell campus of Montgomery County Community College were handed the marijuana petition.

"They're just trying to get numbers," said Joseph Passarella, director of elections for Montgomery, who said he has so far received a handful of complaints from students who said their party affiliation had been changed without their consent.

Susan Adams, a spokeswoman for the college, said the petition canvassers did not have permission from the school to work on the campus.

Project America Votes was a name used by canvassers for Sproul & Associates, an Arizona-based consultant under contract with the Republican National Committee.

Nathan Sproul, the firm's owner, yesterday denied that his workers had used petitions to bait students into party switches.

"This is clearly the Democratic plan to make these baseless allegations," said Heather Layman, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. Layman said she was speaking on behalf of Sproul. She said no Sproul workers were involved in such tactics in Oregon or Pennsylvania.

Sproul's role in ostensibly nonpartisan voter registration drives have triggered official investigations in several states, with canvassers alleging they had been told to refuse to register Democrats or to discard Democratic registration forms, leaving voters who thought they had registered off the rolls.


-------

Jump to TO Features for Sunday October 24, 2004

FORD
10-24-2004, 04:55 PM
The Coming Post-Election Chaos
By John W. Dean
FindLaw

Friday 22 October 2004

A storm warning of things to come if the vote is as close as expected.

This next presidential election, on November 2, may be followed by post-election chaos unlike any we've ever known.

Look at the swirling, ugly currents currently at work in this conspicuously close race. There is Republicans' history of going negative to win elections. There is Karl Rove's disposition to challenge close elections in post-election brawls. And there is Democrats' (and others) new unwillingness to roll over, as was done in 2000. Finally, look at the fact that a half-dozen lawsuits are in the works in the key states and more are being developed.

This is a climate for trouble. A storm warning is appropriate. In the end, attorneys and legal strategy could prove as important, if not more so, to the outcome of this election as the traditional political strategists and strategy.

Let's go over each factor that spells trouble - and see how they may combine.

A GOP Disposition for Nasty Campaigns

Before this year's race, 1988 presidential race between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis was well-known as the most foul of modern campaigns. The Bush campaign used Willie Horton to smear their way to the White House - with Lee Atwater playing the hardest of hardball.

Horton was a convicted murderer. Massachusetts Governor Dukakis gave him a prison furlough. Once furloughed, Horton held a white Maryland couple hostage for twelve hours, raping the woman and stabbing the man. By using these facts - and Horton's mug shot - in a heavy-handed negative advertisement, Atwater turned the election for Bush. As a Southern, especially, he must have understood how the ad catered to racial prejudice.

In the 2000 Republican primary race, George W. Bush used similar tactics against Senator John McCain. That's no surprise: Bush's political strategist Karl Rove, and Bush himself, were protégées' and admires of Lee Atwater. To my knowledge, all of Rove's campaigns have accentuated the negative - often dwelling exclusively on nasty attacks. This one is no exception.

Thus, if Bush narrowly prevails on Election Day, the Democrats are likely to be in a less than congenial mood - and especially likely to go to court. And there will doubtless be fodder for litigation, given the GOP's propensity to try to disqualify votes and voters.

The GOP's Campaign Tactic of Attempting to Disqualify Votes and Voters

In 1986, former Assistant United States Attorney James Brosnahan (today a noted San Francisco trial attorney) testified - based on an investigation the Justice Department had dispatched him to conduct - that as a young Phoenix attorney, Justice William Rehnquist had been part of conservative Republicans' 1962 efforts to disqualify black and Hispanic voters who showed up to vote. Brosnahan's testimony was supported by no less than fourteen additional witnesses. Rehnquist nevertheless became Chief Justice - thanks to the continued support of conservative Republicans.

During the 1964 Goldwater versus Johnson race, when I first heard of such tactics, I was appalled to hear friends bragging about excluding Johnson supporters from voting. Later, when I found myself working at the Department of Justice for Richard Kleindienst, we discussed such tactics.

Kleindienst served as director of field operations for Goldwater in 1964, and for Nixon in 1968. Remarkably, Kleindienst confided that he had engaged in fewer dubious tactics in 1968 than in 1964. If such efforts were mounted by the Nixon campaign in 1972, when I had a good overview of what was going on, I am not aware of it.

Even Nixon had his limits, and he was more interested in wooing white Southerners into the Republican ranks. He did so, successfully, when such Southern Democrats stalwarts and pillars of bigotry and racism as Senators Strom Thrumond and Jesse Helms joined the GOP. They renewed the party's effort to disqualify voters who, and votes, that did not see the world as Republicans did. The racism became less blatant. After all, it had become a crime - which called for new tactics. Yet the revised stratagems were (and remain) anything but subtle.

The 2000 presidential race in Florida is an excellent example. Reportedly, Bush's Florida victory came courtesy of 537 votes out of some six million. It's plain from this slim margin that the GOP's voter and vote disqualifying tactics cost Vice President Al Gore the presidency. (In the October 2004 issue of Vanity Fair, an excellent article entitled "The Path To Florida" explains how the Republicans nullified and disqualified literally hundreds of thousands of Florida votes.)

This lesson has not been lost on the Democrats - who are likely to refrain from conceding if they are losing in 2004 until all of the dubious disqualifications in closely-won swing states are sorted out.

Rove's Refusal to Accept Defeat: The Knee-jerk Response of Suing

And it won't only be the Democrats heading to court. Indeed, in Florida in 2000, it was Bush who sued first - while later falsely accusing Gore of starting the litigation.

Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't merely the closeness of the tallying in what appeared to be unique circumstances in Florida that spawned litigation. To the contrary, suing is a standard operating procedure for Karl Rove when he is losing (or has lost) a race.

A recent profile of Karl Rove in the November 2004 Atlantic Monthly, entitled "Karl Rove In A Corner," examines how Rove operates in a close race. While Rove has had only a few, his tactics are never pretty.

The article describes "Rove's power, when challenged, to draw on an animal ferocity that far exceeds the chest-thumping bravado common to professional political operatives" - and notes that "Rove's fiercest tendencies have been elided in national media coverage."

Consider Rove's role in a 1994 judicial campaign for the Alabama Supreme Court. Election returns showed his candidate had lost by 304 votes. But Rove went to court - not only suing to overturn the election, but at the same time, further campaigning to garner support for these efforts.

These maneuvers went on and on and on. Rove's candidate and his opponent both appeared for Inauguration Day ceremonies, although neither was seated. Rove moved the matter from state to federal courts. And he appealed whenever he could - all the way up to the U. S. Supreme Court, which stayed the case almost a year after the election. In the end, Rove's man won - purportedly by 262 votes.

Doubtless, Rove was similarly prepared to take Bush's 2000 lawsuits as far as necessary. Had the U.S. Supreme Court bumped the case back to the Florida Supreme Court, and allowed the recount to conclude, doubtless Rove would have again challenged the recount - all the way back up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Make no mistake: If Bush loses, and it is very close, Rove will want to litigate as long as possible, going to the U.S. Supreme Court (again) if possible.

Still Too Close to Call: The Conspicuous Closeness of the 2004 Race

So far, no incumbent modern president has won or lost in a squeaker. Even races that looked close in the polls were subject to a last-minute surge in one direction. But we are now ten days away from the 2004 election, with no surge yet in evidence.

A late "October Surprise" might change that. Osama's arrest would likely cause a surge for Bush. New and unequivocally damning evidence about the justification for the Iraq war could create a surge for Kerry. (Suppose, for instance, it became incontrovertible that, for instance, Bush and Cheney knew that Saddam not only did not have WMD but also had terminal cancer.)

Still, without such a surprise, this race may be an historical photo finish. The electoral is deeply dived. Most of the undecided are now decided. So a true surge for either candidate is unlikely.

There is one wild card: Both sides - as well as many independent groups - have recently registered hundreds of thousands of new voters. Historically, newly registered voters have often not voted in the first election for which they were eligible. But that could change; it's impossible to know.

Exactly how close will the race be? Of course, polls are an imperfect measure, and they tend to be less reliable the closer it is to Election Day. Still, as I write, and based on the consensus of polls I believe (historically) the most reliable, the situation appears to be this:

There are a total of 538 electoral votes. A simple majority of 270 wins. (If the candidates tie at 269, the tie is broken by the House of Representatives.)

President Bush seems to have a lock on 176 electoral votes from twenty states: AL-9, AK-3, AZ-10, GA-15, ID-4, IN-10, KS-6, KY-8, LA-9, MS-6, MT-3, NE-5, ND-3, OK-7, SC-3, TN-11, TX-34, UT-5, VA-13 and WY-3. Senator Kerry seems to have a lock on 153 electoral votes in ten states and the District of Columbia: CA-55, CT-7, DE-3, HI-4, IL-21, MD-10, MA-12, NY-31, RI-4, VT-3 and DC-3.

Six states with 51 electoral votes tilt toward Bush: AR-6, CO-9, MO-11, NV-5, NC-15 and WV-5. But six states with 63 electoral votes lean toward Kerry: ME-3 (note that Maine apportions its four electoral votes, and one vote still appears to be up for grabs), MI-17, MN-10, NJ-15, OR-7 and WA-11.

Suppose all the tilting states indeed go in the direction in which they are tilting. That gives Bush/Cheney 227 electoral votes, and Kerry/Edwards 216 votes.

There are still eight true swing states. In total, they have 95 electoral votes: IA-7, FL-27, ME-1, NH-4, NM-5, OH-20, PA-21, and WI-10.

It is in these states that election 2004 will ultimately be resolved - either in the voting booths, or in the courts. And note that none of these states, alone - even Florida, with its 27 votes - will give either candidate a win.

That means we could see simultaneous litigation in a number of states - chosen either because the polling was especially close, or because there are significant numbers of vulnerable votes to try to disqualify. It will be recalled that the possibility for multi-state litigation arose in 2000, before Florida became the focus; it could easily become a reality in 2004.

An Election for Attorneys: Neither Side Will Budge If Litigation Begins

When I discussed this situation with several attorneys on both sides, I realized none are likely to back down. The Democrats intend to play hardball to win this time; the Republicans feel that Democrats aren't adhering to the letter of the law in registration efforts - and want to hold them to it.

It is impossible to get a complete count, but it appears that at least 10,000 - and possibly as many as 150,000 - attorneys, paralegals and law students will be working as observers, or handling election problems, on November 2 - just in the swing states. They have been trained in the relevant state's election laws, and they will focus on the casting and counting of votes.

With so many legal minds looking for problems and such combative attitudes on both sides, litigation seems inevitable - especially if the November 2 tally is close. And if litigation starts, it won't stop soon: A game of litigation chicken - testing who will fold first - seems likely, with each party bent on holding out.

The Nightmare Scenario: An Election up in the Air for Months

It may be days or weeks, if not months, before we know the final results of this presidential election. And given the Republican control of the government, if Karl Rove is on the losing side, it could be years: He will take every issue (if he is losing) to its ultimate appeal in every state he can.

The cost of such litigation will be great - with the capital of citizens' trust in their government, and its election processes, sinking along with the nation's (if not the world') financial markets, which loathe uncertainty. After Bush v. Gore, is there any doubt how the high Court would resolve another round? This time, though, the Court, too, will pay more dearly. With persuasive power as its only source of authority, the Court's power will diminish as the American people's cynicism skyrockets.

It does not seem to trouble either Rove or Bush that they are moving us toward a Twenty-first Century civil war - and that, once again, Southern conservatism is at its core. Only a miracle, it strikes me, can prevent this election from descending into post-election chaos. But given the alternatives, a miracle is what I am hoping for.

John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to the president.

FORD
10-25-2004, 03:24 PM
Election chief warns of absentee scam

(from... you guessed it: FLORIDA)

People posing as election officials are visiting residents of several counties and offering to take absentee ballots.

By STEPHEN HEGARTY, Times Staff Writer
Published October 22, 2004

Pasco elections officials have a warning for the county's absentee voters: Don't give your ballot to a stranger claiming to be from the elections office.

They're not who they say they are.

"The people who are soliciting your ballots in this manner are not elections officials," Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning warned Thursday.

The warning came after a phone call from a west Pasco woman. Other Florida counties have gotten similar complaints.

"We've had a bunch of them - 100 at least," said Bob Sweat, elections supervisor for Manatee County. "It's probably going on all over the state of Florida."

The Pasco woman said someone came to her home to collect her absentee ballot earlier this week. She said she was led to believe they were from the elections office. The woman told the strangers she hadn't completed the ballot, but they took it anyway.

The deception is the latest sign of the lengths to which some partisans appear ready to go in this election. Elections officials worry there will be many more complaints of overly aggressive behavior in attempts to affect the outcome of the presidential race.

Browning's office had not yet received the woman's absentee ballot Thursday. Given the circumstances, Browning arranged to send her another.

Other counties have had numerous complaints about similar misrepresentations.

"We've had a few people with those complaints - I'd say less than 10," said Dan Nolan, chief of staff for Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson. Johnson said he routinely advises voters to send their absentee ballots in via mail, or to bring it directly to his office.

In Manatee, there have been numerous complaints, and the Sheriff's Office is investigating.

Manatee Elections Supervisor Sweat said the people collecting the ballots appeared to know exactly who had absentee ballots. It is possible for political parties, candidates and political groups to get lists of voters who request the absentee ballots.

Sweat said it appeared the collections were occurring in neighborhoods full of low-income, minority and elderly residents.

Several political-oriented groups are working hard to get their supporters to vote early, either through absentee ballots or early voting. It is legal for them to collect absentee ballots and turn them in to an elections office, so long as they don't misrepresent themselves or alter the ballots.

In his warning, Browning said, "I need to make it very clear that my office will never show up at your place of residence to collect your absentee ballot."

Because the presidential race is so close in Florida and its 27 electoral votes could decide who will take the White House, political groups are aggressively working to get their supporters to vote. Many say, though, that they are keeping their hands off the actual ballots.

A representative from the group Americans Coming Together said Thursday that they urge people to request absentee ballots, then collect the request cards and turn them in to elections officials. They have turned in thousands of requests in the Tampa Bay area. However, ACT stays away from the actual ballots, according to Tait Sye, state communications director for ACT, a Democratic voter mobilization group.

"We have turned in thousands of request cards for Pasco," Sye said. "But we are not collecting the absentee ballots, period."
[Last modified October 22, 2004, 01:09:27]

link (http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/22/Pasco/Election_chief_warns_.shtml)

FORD
10-25-2004, 08:36 PM
Registration errors plague voter drives
New voters turn up unregistered at voting locations
By Kristen Titus
Published: Monday, October 25, 2004



New voter drives have registered many to vote, but some people have found they are not actually registered once they go to vote at the city clerk´s office in the Madison Municipal Building.


UW-Madison senior Megan Lipke registered to vote when approached by a volunteer armed with a clipboard on State Street nearly two months ago.

But after waiting in line for more than 30 minutes to vote at the city clerk's office, she was told there was no record of her registration anywhere.

And the problem seems to be pervasive.

"Wow, I wonder how many people think they're registered and they're really not," Lipke said to the official.

Under her breath the official muttered, "You have no idea."

The registration flood

New Voters Project State Field Director Bruce Speight said his campaign registered nearly 22,000 new voters in Madison and more than 135,000 statewide.

Once collected and sorted, each form is supposed to be delivered to the respective city clerk to be reviewed and processed.

"We definitely have a tight process for making sure that once the forms are completed they come back to our office and then we deliver them to the appropriate city clerk's office," Speight said.

However, Wisconsin State Elections Board Director Kevin Kennedy said the turnover can prove problematic.

"Anytime you deal with paper, something can go wrong," he said.

Kennedy said with the influx of registrations, forms are easily misplaced and can end up in the wrong hands. He said the State Elections Board office gets nearly 1,000 misdirected registrations a day.

"I kind of joke about the fact that somebody's going to buy a car from somebody from the New Voters Project and they are going to take out the back seat and find 10 or 12 registration forms right there," he said.

As voter registrations pour in, the city clerk's office is scrambling to process and validate each application while facilitating early voting.

In processing countless registrations daily, Kennedy said the officials often encounter discrepancies of misinformation, duplicate registrations and illegible applications.

"They check the forms to see if on their face they are valid, and they often will find three or four registrations for the same person," Kennedy said. "If there is a conflict between the information, they will send a letter or contact the voter if they can."

Speight said the New Voters Project has received numerous returned registrations citing poor penmanship or not enough information, claims he said are often disputable.

"It's absurd. It seems to me they would at least take a stab at it or they would mark it so they could figure it out when someone comes to vote," he said. "It's the responsibility of clerks to process registration forms-not send them back to people who are collecting them."

In these cases, the New Voters Project attempts to contact each of the rejected electors, he said.

However, Lipke never received notification from either the city clerk's office or the New Voters Project.

How to ensure your vote

Luckily, Lipke was equipped with the proper forms of identification.

In Wisconsin, voters can simply register to vote at the polling place on the day of the election granted they have the proper forms of identification-a current form of ID with a mailing address in the given polling area.

However, this is problematic for students who do not have a Wisconsin driver's license with their current Madison address listed. Also, students who have moved must reregister under their current living address at their respective polling place.

For those who do not have a current Wisconsin driver's license, Kennedy recommends bringing a utility bill with your name and current address listed as insurance.

Kennedy advises voters to not only come prepared with identification, but also come prepared to wait. Head to the polls between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. when it is expected to be less crowded, he said.

"The registrations are adding a real challenge, but I think the biggest challenge is the fact that we are going to have so many people going to the polling place on Election Day," Kennedy said.

"Be prepared. Be patient. Be counted," he said.

Sgt Schultz
10-26-2004, 12:07 PM
The Daily Communist? That student hippie left wing commie rag? LEAST credible source on the planet. I'm gonna hurl..........

Sgt Schultz
10-26-2004, 12:08 PM
Ohio Gov. Taft: Four Counties Have More Voters Than Eligible Citizens

Appearing on CNN’s American Morning program Tuesday morning, Ohio’s Republican Governor Bob Taft painted a disturbing picture of widespread vote fraud in his state.

Taft told CNN’s Bill Hemmer that in four Ohio counties more people have registered to vote than who live in those counties and are of voting age.

"We have four counties where you have more voters registered than you have 18 and over population,” Taft said.

Taft noted the role of Democrat 527 groups who have inflated Ohio’s voter registeration rolls.

"We've had a lot of fraudulent voter registrations already, mostly by those 527 groups. There will be unprecedented scrutiny of this election on both sides,” he said. Taft noted that many of these new registrations appear to be fraudulent.

"A lot of these voters don't have addresses,” he said of the new registrations. "When they send the postcard out to them, after they register, that comes back undeliverable. You're talking about thousands of cases like that all across the State of Ohio.”

Taft says he hopes the heightened level of scrutiny will lead to "an accurate count for the State of Ohio.”

Taft said vote monitors will seek to "make sure that a voter is a citizen, 18 and over, and a resident of the precinct and county where they plan to vote.”

FORD
10-26-2004, 02:34 PM
New Florida vote scandal revealed

By Greg Palast
Reporting for BBC's Newsnight

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Election supervisor Ion Sancho believes some voters are being intimidated
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

Mass challenges

They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.

Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."

"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."

Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher
A Republican spokeswoman did not deny that voters would be challenged at polling stations
In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.

The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.

When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner.

Rather, she did acknowledge that the party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated in the law."

There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.

Private detective

Democrat Congresswoman Corinne Brown says watches a private investigator film voters
In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.

The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.

On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.

link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm)

DLR'sCock
10-26-2004, 06:16 PM
The fucking Repukes are such scum sucking vermin....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62645-2004Oct25.html


Some Fear Ohio Will Be Florida of 2004
By Paul Farhi and Jo Becker
The Washington Post

Tuesday 26 October 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Democrats and Republicans here traded accusations of voter fraud, obstruction and intimidation Monday as officials grappled with what is becoming a confused - and potentially chaotic - presidential election in this critical battleground state.

As Democrats marched through the downtown streets of the state capital with banners reading "Not This Time!" and chanting "Count every vote," Republicans continued to challenge the eligibility of thousands of newly registered voters. This presented state election officials with the prospect of holding thousands of hearings over the next week to determine who can cast a ballot on Nov. 2.

The continuing legal and bureaucratic uncertainties have heightened fears that Ohio could be on the verge of becoming the next Florida, which could not determine a winner for 36 days after the 2000 election. Polls here show President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in a statistical dead heat in a state that each needs to win.

"A storm is brewing in Ohio," Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman (D) said Monday. "The day after Election Day, we've got to make sure the sun is shining. By that, I mean each and every vote has to be counted."

Among the looming concerns:

Republicans have already filed 35,000 challenges to voters' eligibility and are preparing to send recruits into 8,000 polling places next Tuesday to challenge other voters they suspect are not eligible, particularly hundreds of thousands of the newly registered. Democrats are alarmed at the effort, saying it could tie up voting and keep many away from the polls.


Ohio's voter-registration rolls contain more than 120,000 duplicate names, and an untold number of ineligible voters, such as people who have moved out of the state. A review of the rolls by the Columbus Dispatch even found a murder victim and two suspected terrorists among the eligible.


Democrats fear that polling places will be inadequately staffed and equipped to handle the crush of voters on Election Day. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) said Monday she is concerned that many new voters will not get proper notification from county election boards about where to vote. That is a critical issue in light of a federal appeals court ruling Saturday that voters with provisional ballots - backup ballots for voters whose names do not appear on the rolls - must cast them in their own precinct for the votes to count.

In an interview, J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, acknowledged that the state may experience "a few hiccups" in the next eight days, but he dismissed notions of widespread trouble on Nov. 2. "You manage against systemic choking," said Blackwell, whom Democrats have criticized for his dual role as co-chairman of Bush's reelection campaign in Ohio. "I don't think we'll have systemic choking. I don't anticipate the kind of confusion we saw in Florida."

But Democrats, and some election officials as well, say the most potentially disruptive action could be Republican challenges of voters' eligibility filed over the past few days. Although some of the more than 35,000 challenges have been withdrawn or rejected by county officials, about 25,000 are pending.

The Democratic Party and the Kerry-Edwards campaign sent letters Monday to Ohio's 88 county election boards asking them to dismiss the challenges, arguing that they are "unfair" and "arbitrary" and that the Ohio GOP has not provided sufficient evidence under state law that the voters challenged are ineligible.

The rules for challenging voters vary from state to state, and officials nationwide are bracing for an onslaught. In Ohio, the state GOP is drawing on a little-used 1953 law to file its pre-election challenges.

Ohio law states that a party can challenge a voter's eligibility if the challenger has a reasonable doubt that the person is a citizen, is at least 18, or is a legal resident of the state or the county where he shows up to vote. The law also states that local election boards must give voters challenged before Election Day three days' notice before holding a mandatory hearing, no later than two days before the election.

It is not clear, however, how election officials can hold so many hearings, or what they should do after them.

Gwen Dillingham, the Cuyahoga County deputy election director, said 15,000 to 18,000 pre-election challenges have been filed in the Cleveland area, a traditional Democratic stronghold. "I don't know how we're going to find those people to tell them there's a hearing," she said.

Republicans have pointed to what they contend is widespread evidence of fraud in voter registration. Making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows, for instance, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie pointed out that in Franklin County, the latest Census shows there are more registered voters than there are age-eligible residents.

But election officials and other experts say there is a reasonable explanation for bloated election rolls that has nothing to do with fraud: The National Voter Registration Act prohibits them from purging voters from the rolls for four years after an initial notification is sent.

"It's unfortunate that there seems to be an assumption that there's fraud behind every problem," said Kay Maxwell, president of the League of Women Voters. "There often is a simple explanation. And we're very concerned that these challenges will intimidate people and keep them from voting."

Some boards, including those in the two counties that are home to the cities of Columbus and Dayton, are tossing out most of the GOP's pre-election challenges because the party made technical errors in filing them.

Of the 4,200 challenges filed in Franklin County, officials have determined that 1,600 are valid. Election Board Director Matthew M. Damschroder, a Republican, said that his board will hold the required hearings on the challenges that remain, but will more than likely keep every voter on the rolls and allow those voters to cast provisional ballots.

One irony of the GOP's challenges in Franklin County and Montgomery County is that many of those challenged are overseas military members - often Republican supporters - whose mail cannot be forwarded, officials in both counties said.

Although Ohio law specifies that removing a successfully challenged voter from the rolls is an option, that conflicts with the rules laid out by the National Voter Registration Act. Moreover, local Ohio election boards are bipartisan, with two Republican members and two Democrats, leaving the potential for deadlocks.

Steve Harsman, the Democratic deputy director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said he worries that Election Day challenges could create "such congestion at the polls" that people waiting in line will give up and go home.

"The aim of this is to sow confusion and suppress the vote by creating questions about the eligibility of completely eligible voters," said Bob Bauer, one of the chief lawyers for the Democratic National Committee.

Those who marched to Blackwell's office in Columbus appeared to agree. "We cannot forget what happened in Florida," Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a veteran of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, told the crowd. "And it will not happen here."

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Jump to TO Features for Wednesday October 27, 2004

Nickdfresh
10-26-2004, 07:42 PM
This article by Douglas Turner appeared in todays Buffalo News. I thought it was an interesting take on the varied polls numbers:


Polls grow increasingly fuzzy


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cell phones, caller ID pose new challenges

By DOUGLAS TURNER
News Washington Bureau Chief
10/26/2004

Click to view larger picture

Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News
Barry Zeplowitz, standing, and Shinika Hayes help take the pulse of American voters.



John F. Kerry leads President Bush, 47 percent to 46 percent, in the latest AP/Ipsos Public Affairs poll.
Yet Bush leads Democrat Kerry by 8 percentage points in a new TIPP survey.

And Republican Bush leads Kerry, 47 percent to 45 percent, in the new Reuters/Zogby Survey.

These see-saw results in national polls point to new and unsolved challenges in polling because of new telecommunications products.

The daunting advances are cell phones, caller ID and Do Not Call directories.

Polling industry officials insist that in spite of consumers' growing use of high technology, this year's voter surveys are as reliable as they were in the close presidential election of 2000.

But some independent students of the business, as well as some pollsters themselves, strongly disagree.

New consumer technology "is completely screwing things up," said Darrell West, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University.

"It is getting harder and harder to get reliable data (from voters over the telephone) because of cell phones, answering machines, caller ID devices and the resulting low response rates," West said.

In addition, a record number of newly registered voters, including young voters and blocs of African-Americans, may not yet show up on the computerizing call lists for polling companies to check. This is further complicating polling this year.

"Nobody's coping very well with these changes," said Canisius College analyst Michael Haselswerdt, who does his own polling. "We are in the last stages of sampling the voters the way we've always done it."

More than 161 million cell phones - which are not found in the phone directories that polling companies use - are now in operation across the country. And cell phone use is growing at a rate of about 13 percent a year, according to estimates by the Federal Communications Commission.

Nationally, 67 percent of households now have someone who uses a cell phone, according to Scarborough Research. In the Buffalo Niagara market, the figure is 56 percent.

Wireless phone use is concentrated among younger, more affluent Americans. Critics of the national election polls say they are missing out on some of this volatile and growing sample of the voting public because pollsters do not call cell phones.

Another problem is implementation of the Do Not Call list barring cold calls to homes by telemarketers. That list of 62 million land line subscribers has an indirect negative effect on pollsters' ability to reach voters.

Congress exempted pollsters and political candidates from the Do Not Call prohibitions. But few voters know of these exemptions, and the list increases the likelihood of hang-ups when the political surveyors call.

Nancy Belden, president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, contends the polling business has successfully adjusted for these changes.

To begin, she says, cell phone-only households still comprise only 5 percent of all homes - a figure not large enough to affect poll reliability.

"And we are still finding plenty of respondents," Belden said.

In addition, major polls have coped by "weighting" polling results.

Few, if any political polls, actually reach a voter sample that is truly balanced in terms of gender, age and ideology.

So pollsters "weight" their results. That means pollsters need to puff up real samples to make up for groups that the pollsters can't actually reach on the telephone. If a survey can't contact enough real minority households, for example, the company increases the minority share to agree with census or other estimates.

But Cornell University's expert on polling, government professor Walter E. Mebane, said "weighting" may not really work this year.

"Most of these guys are going to use guesswork," Mebane said of the practice.

"And their guesswork may be no better than yours," he added.

John Zogby, president of Zogby International, bristled at Mebane's suggestion that "weighting" poll samples involves guesswork.

"There are pathways of party identification that can be tracked with people who turn out to vote," said Zogby, who was one of only two major pollsters to predict that Al Gore would win the popular vote in 2000. "My "weighting' for political IDs is based on sound historical trending."

He said all the changes have been accounted for in his surveys by weighting and careful tracking of party trends.

"Let's face it, though, 20 percent of this profession is art," Zogby said about weighting techniques.

One big fly in the ointment this year, Mebane said, is the surge in new registrations around the nation, particularly in battleground states.

As a result of the unrest over the Iraq war and cultural issues, independent organizations such as America Coming Together on the left and evangelicals and lay Catholics on the right are spending millions on registration, advertising and get-out-the-vote drives.

Independent Republican and Democratic groups so far have spent $439 million on such efforts, according to Political Moneyline, an independent bipartisan tracking group.

The edge on independent spending so far goes to the Democratic side, with the liberal patron of Moveon.org, George Soros, leading the pack of givers with $26.5 million.

As a result of these drives, Utah has increased registration by 69,000 over 2002; Georgia is up nearly 400,000; Louisiana is up 133,000; and Philadelphia alone has registered 225,000 new voters this fall.

Georgia is seeing late surges in African-American enrollments, and New Mexico registered 17,000 new Hispanics in October.

But few pollsters are mechanically set up to chart changes in enrollment across the nation, Mebane said. One reason, he said, is the wide variety of registration deadlines among the states.

If these new registrants are young voters, the massive increase in cell phone use since 2000 makes their political leanings even more elusive for pollsters to track.

"So no one has a clue as to who will be voting . . . ," Mebane said.

Industry spokeswoman Belden says voting patterns of the younger people are unpredictable. "Young voters have always been difficult to reach," she added.

Barry Zeplowitz, head of Buffalo-based Zeplowitz & Associates, also wonders whether the major public surveys are getting an accurate reading on young voters.

"The numbers are all over the place," he said.

Zeplowitz, who is doing private polls on state legislative and congressional races, noted that at the end of last week there was "a nine-point spread" among three national polls - ranging from Bush trailing Kerry by three points to beating the Massachusetts senator by six points.

Zogby, whose polling indicated an 8 percent margin of victory for Bill Clinton in 1996, just 0.5 percent off the actual vote, voiced confidence in his own surveys this year. But he still has worries.

"The one thing that gives me a queasy feeling are the number of voters who make up their mind only on Election Day - a day we don't poll," he said.


News Washington Bureau assistant Anna L. Miller contributed to this article.
e-mail: dturner@buffnews.com



http://buffalonews.com/editorial/20041026/1054503.asp (http://)

FORD
10-26-2004, 07:52 PM
Local 10 Uncovers Big Ballot Mystery
Elections Office Says Situation Is 'Odd'

POSTED: 4:10 pm EDT October 26, 2004
UPDATED: 6:14 pm EDT October 26, 2004

BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. -- Local 10 has received many phone calls from viewers in Broward County who say they have not received the absentee ballots –- and the news from the elections office doesn't sound good.

Local 10 has learned that many as many as 58,000 ballots that were supposed to mailed out on Oct. 7 and 8 could be missing.

The Broward County Supervisor of Elections office is saying only that the situation is "unusual," and they are looking into it.

Gisela Salas, Broward Deputy Elections Supervisor, said, "I hate to say 'missing' at this time because that has not yet be substantiated. Some ballots are starting to arrive. But there is an extraordinary delay."

An elections office representative told Local 10 that the office has investigated with the U.S. Post Office what might have happened to the ballots, but so far, no one has been able to figure it out.

"It is unusual. It's a puzzle on the part of our office and the postal service," Salas said. "Our office did make the delivery and the post office assures us they were processed. What happened is in question."

The postal service told Local 10 late Tuesday that they don't have 58,000 ballots floating around. They did say that they have several employees assigned to deal only with ballots and they are being delivered in one to two days -- once they get them.

How Will You Vote?

As far as the voters go that haven't received their ballots, the elections office is now suggesting that they take the opportunity to vote early.

Since many who request absentee ballots cannot physically vote in their county, there are likely to be some angry voters.

If you are able to and would like to vote early in Broward County, click here to find a voting location.

Watch Local 10 News for more coverage of this missing ballot controversy.

Copyright 2004 by Local10.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.link (http://www.local10.com/politics/3854230/detail.html)

Nickdfresh
10-27-2004, 12:09 AM
Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote

By Jimmy Carter
Monday, September 27, 2004; Page A19

After the debacle in Florida four years ago, former president Gerald Ford and I were asked to lead a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes in the American electoral process. After months of concerted effort by a dedicated and bipartisan group of experts, we presented unanimous recommendations to the president and Congress. The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act's key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes.

The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair.

_____Today's Op-Eds_____

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• Election by Litigation? (Post, Oct. 27, 2004)
• The GOP's Shameful Vote Strategy (Post, Oct. 27, 2004)
• Time to Tell Hussein's Story (Post, Oct. 27, 2004)
• A Strict Separation (Post, Oct. 27, 2004)




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The Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections, all of them held under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions. When I describe these activities, either in the United States or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are: "Why don't you observe the election in Florida?" and "How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?"

The answer to the first question is that we can monitor only about five elections each year, and meeting crucial needs in other nations is our top priority. (Our most recent ones were in Venezuela and Indonesia, and the next will be in Mozambique.) A partial answer to the other question is that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.

The most significant of these requirements are:

• A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place. Although rarely perfect in their objectivity, such top administrators are at least subject to public scrutiny and responsible for the integrity of their decisions. Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process.

• Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. Modern technology is already in use that makes electronic voting possible, with accurate and almost immediate tabulation and with paper ballot printouts so all voters can have confidence in the integrity of the process. There is no reason these proven techniques, used overseas and in some U.S. states, could not be used in Florida.

It was obvious that in 2000 these basic standards were not met in Florida, and there are disturbing signs that once again, as we prepare for a presidential election, some of the state's leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms.

Four years ago, the top election official, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee. The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George W. Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.

The top election official has also played a leading role in qualifying Ralph Nader as a candidate, knowing that two-thirds of his votes in the previous election came at the expense of Al Gore. She ordered Nader's name be included on absentee ballots even before the state Supreme Court ruled on the controversial issue.

Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, naturally a strong supporter of his brother, has taken no steps to correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment or to prevent them in the future.

It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida.

Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52800-2004Sep26.html (http://)

FORD
10-28-2004, 11:39 AM
Published on Thursday, October 28, 2004 by Greg Palast
Florida's Computers Have Already Counted Thousands of Votes for George W. Bush
by Greg Palast


Before one vote was cast in early voting this week in Florida, the new touch-screen computer voting machines of Florida started out with a several-thousand vote lead for George W. Bush. That is, the mechanics of the new digital democracy boxes "spoil" votes at a predictably high rate in African-American precincts, effectively voiding enough votes cast for John Kerry to in a tight race, keep the White House safe from the will of the voters.

Excerpted from the current (November) issue of Harper's Magazine
by Greg Palast

To understand the fiasco in progress in Florida, we need to revisit the 2000 model, starting with a lesson from Dick Carlberg, acting elections supervisor in Duval County until this week. “Some voters are strange,” Carlberg told me recently. He was attempting to explain why, in the last presidential election, five thousand Duvalians trudged to the polls and, having arrived there, voted for no one for president. Carlberg did concede that, after he ran these punch cards through the counting machines a second time, some partly punched holes shook loose, gaining Al Gore160 votes or so, Bush roughly 80.

“So, if you ran the ‘blank’ ballots through a few more times, we’d have a different president,” I noted. Carlberg, a Republican, answered with a grin.

So it was throughout the state—in certain precincts, at least. In Jacksonville, for example, in Duval precincts 7 through 10, nearly one in five ballots, or 11,200 votes in all, went uncounted, rejected as either an ‘under-vote’ (a blank ballot) or ‘over-vote’ (a ballot with extra markings). In those precincts, 72 percent of the residents are African-American; ballots that did make the count went four to one for Al Gore. All in all, a staggering 179,855 votes were “spoiled” (i.e., cast but not counted) in the 2000 election in Florida. Demographers from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission matched the ballots with census stats and estimated that 54 percent of all the under- and over-voted ballots had been cast by blacks, for whom the likelihood of having a vote discarded exceeded that of a white voter by 900 percent.

Votes don't "spoil" because they are left out of the fridge. Vote spoilage, at root, is a class problem. Just as poor and minority districts wind up with shoddy schools and shoddy hospitals, they are stuck with shoddy ballot machines. In Gadsden, the only black-majority county in Florida, one in eight votes spoiled in 2000, the worst countywide record in the state. Next door in Leon County (Tallahassee), which used the same paper ballot, the mostly white, wealthier county lost almost no votes. The difference was that in mostly-white Leon, each voting booth was equipped with its own optical scanner, with which voters could check their own ballots. In the black county, absent such “second-chance” equipment, any error would void a vote.

The best solution for vote spoilage, whether from blank ballots or from hanging chads, is Leon County's: paper ballots, together with scanners in the voting booths. In fact, this is precisely what Governor Bush's own experts recommended in 2001 for the entire state. His Select Task Force on Elections Procedures, appointed by the Governor to sooth public distrust after the 2000 race, chose paper ballots with scanners over the trendier option -- the touchscreen computer.

Although the computer rigs cost eight times as much as paper with scanners, they result in many more spoiled votes. In this year’s presidential primary in Florida, the computers had a spoilage rate of more than 1 percent, as compared to one-tenth of a percent for the double-checked paper ballots.

Apparently some Bush boosters were not keen on a fix so inexpensive and effective. In particular, Sandra Mortham— a founder of Women for Jeb Bush, the Governor's re-election operation — successfully lobbied on behalf of the Florida Association of Counties to stop the state the legislature from blocking the purchase of touchscreen voting systems. Mortham, coincidentally, was also a paid lobbyist for Election Systems & Strategies, a computer voting-machine manufacturer. Fifteen of Florida’s sixty-seven counties chose the pricey computers, twelve of them ordered from ES&S which, in turn, paid Mortham's County Association a percentage on sales.

Florida’s computerization had its first mass test in 2002, in Broward County. The ES&S machines appeared to work well in white Ft. Lauderdale precincts, but in black communities, such as Lauderhill and Pompano Beach, there was wholesale disaster. Poll workers were untrained, and many places opened late. Black voters were held up in lines for hours. No one doubts that hundreds of Black votes were lost before they were cast.

Broward county commissioners had purchased the touch-screen machines from ES&S over the objection of Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant; notably, one comissioner's campaign treasurer was an ES&S lobbyist. Governor Bush responded to the Broward fiasco by firing Oliphant, an African-American, for "misfeasance."

Even when computers work, they don't work well for African-Americans. A July 2001 Congressional study found that computers spoiled votes in minority districts at three times the rate of votes lost in white districts.

Based on the measured differential in vote loss between paper and computer systems, the fifteen counties in Florida, can expect to lose at least 29,000 votes to spoilage—some 27,000 more than if the counties had used paper ballots with scanners.

Given the demographics of spoilage, this translates into a net lead of thousands for Bush before a single ballot is cast.

For the full story, read "Another Florida" in the November issue of Harper's, out now. Mr. Palast, a contributing editor to the magazine, is author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. See the film of his investigative reports for BBC Television, "Bush Family Fortunes," out now on DVD.

Nickdfresh
10-28-2004, 10:43 PM
See Ford. You're wrong, Republican's are urging minorities to vote:

From The Onion

MIAMI, FL—With the knowledge that the minority vote will be crucial in the upcoming presidential election, Republican Party officials are urging blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities to make their presence felt at the polls on Wednesday, Nov. 3.


Above: Monreal urges black community members to hit the polls next Wednesday.
"Minority voters should make their unique voices heard, especially the African-American voting bloc, which is always a major factor in every election," said Florida Republican Party voter-drive organizer Mark Monreal, as he handed out flyers at a community center in the mostly black Miami neighborhood of South Farms. "That's why we put up hundreds of brightly colored banners featuring Martin Luther King Jr. and the 'Vote November 3' reminder. We needed to make sure they know when we want them at polling places."

"You can't walk through a black neighborhood here in Miami without seeing our 'Don't Forget Big Wednesday!' message up on a billboard, tacked to a phone booth, or taped to a bus shelter," Monreal added. "The Republican Party has spared no expense in this endeavor."

GOP committees in Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Florida have spent more than $3 million on pamphlets, posters, stickers, and T-shirts bearing such slogans as "Put America First—Vote On The Third!" and "November 3rd Is Your Time To Be Heard."

Monreal's group is joined by hundreds of local organizations, such as the Black Republicans For Maryland. While the Black Republicans do not actually include any black members, the group describes itself as "dedicated to communicating a strong message to members of the African-American community."

"We're aiming not just to get black people to vote, but to mobilize them to come together for one specific day of minority empowerment," Baltimore County Black Republicans For Maryland president Mitchell Williams said. "As Republicans, we truly believe that, by coordinating the minority vote across the nation, we can put minorities in their proper place. We believe we know what's best for the whole country."

Republicans are eager to point out the differences between their drive and those of other get-out-the-vote organizations.


Above: A billboard erected by the Baltimore County Black Republicans for Maryland.
"Strange as it is to say it, we're non-partisan," Monreal said. "We don't care if the minority voter is part of the vast majority of non-whites that traditionally votes Democrat. What's important to us is that we get them to the polls bright and early on the third day of November, so that they feel like they've participated in this year's election."

Monreal said Republican volunteers will be available to drive minorities to polling places on Nov. 3.

"We'll even stay at home with them the day before, to help them prepare for the act of voting," Monreal said. "We'll engage in concentrated one-on-one tutoring the entire day, to make sure these voters focus on the important act of voting, rather than going outside, reading newspapers, or watching television."

Republican Party leaders expressed pride in what they characterized as a true alternative to other programs that encourage voting, such as Rock The Vote.

"Let's be honest," Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie said. "The Bush camp has been criticized for ignoring the minority vote for some time, especially during the last election. This project is our way of correcting that misperception. The Bush camp is extremely concerned about the black vote, especially in places like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. This year, on Nov. 3, we'll make a concerted effort to welcome minority voters into our own special camps with open arms."


For more campaign coverage, visit the Onion Election Guidehttp://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4043&n=1 (http://) :D

FORD
10-28-2004, 11:11 PM
That wouldn't surprise me in the least.... Love the Onion though. :D

Now back to our regularly scheduled voter fraud......

FORD
10-28-2004, 11:11 PM
Fake Letter Concerns Lake County Election Officials
Letter Claims That Some Voter Registrations Are Invalid

POSTED: 7:27 pm EDT October 28, 2004
LAKE COUNTY, Ohio -- The Lake County Board of Elections said Thursday that a letter being mailed to some of the county's newly registered voters is phony, and is not an official Board of Elections letter, reported NewsChannel5's Tracy Carloss.

The letter is printed on stationary that looks like it's from the board and tells voters that some groups registered people illegally, and that those who registered through these groups won't be able to vote on Tuesday.

Lake County officials are worried that more of these letters may be sent.

"We don't know if a bigger chunk of the iceberg is under the surface, but as of yet, a few letters have come to one residence with two people who received the actual letter," said Sheriff Dan Dunlap.

Janet Clair, director of the Lake County Board of Elections, assures voters that the letter did not come from her office and she says in her 20 years of running elections, she has never seen anything like this.

"Does it sicken me? Does it upset me? Absolutely," said Clair. "We take an oath … it's such a precious thing to have the right to vote, and I am honored to run elections."

Official letters from the Lake County Board of Elections will always have the return address on the envelope.

The stationary will not only have the board's address, but also the names of board members and phone numbers, and official letters will always be signed.

The phony letter arrived with only the address on the letter.

Carloss reported that Lake County voters are disturbed by the dirty politics.

"I've never heard of anything like that and I've been here almost 30 years," said one resident.

Lake County officials said that when the person or people responsible for sending out the letter are caught, they will be prosecuted.

If you live in Lake County and have any voting questions are concerns, you can contact the Board of Elections at (440) 350-2700.


Copyright 2004 by NewsNet5. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

FORD
10-29-2004, 02:17 PM
Originally posted by Sgt Schultz
The Daily Communist? That student hippie left wing commie rag? LEAST credible source on the planet. I'm gonna hurl..........

Must be a lot of "commies" in Wisconsin......

http://gallery.johnkerry.com/data/photos/medium/e417e730-0a9b-4007-bbc1-9c2affb12655.jpg

Nickdfresh
10-30-2004, 10:47 PM
This is printed in the LA Times. Link requires registration.

Moore to Have Cameras at Polling Places

By Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore plans to have hundreds of cameras outside polling places in Ohio and Florida on Election Day to watch for attempts to suppress voter turnout.

The director of the anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" announced Saturday that a total of 1,200 professional and nonprofessional cameramen, filmmakers and videographers will bring their cameras to polling places in the two presidential battleground states, especially in minority communities.

"I'm putting those who intend to suppress the vote on notice: Voter intimidation and suppression will not be tolerated," Moore said in a statement.

Moore, who was in Columbus for a rally Saturday night, planned visits to Ohio and Florida on Tuesday, his publicist Terri Hardesty said.

Polls in both states indicate the race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry is too close to call.

There have been voting problems already in Florida, where 537 votes tipped the state and the presidency to Bush in 2000. In Ohio, Democrats are fighting Republican attempts to challenge voter registrations.



If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.

Article licensing and reprint options






http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-brf-michael-moore,1,7823332.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines (http://)

Warham
10-31-2004, 09:34 AM
Originally posted by FORD
Must be a lot of "commies" in Wisconsin......

http://gallery.johnkerry.com/data/photos/medium/e417e730-0a9b-4007-bbc1-9c2affb12655.jpg

They were all there to see the Boss.

FORD
11-01-2004, 02:41 PM
Misleading Calls Made to Michigan Voters

48 minutes ago


By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer

LANSING, Mich. - Some Michigan voters have received phone calls falsely claiming that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would make gay marriage legal, Kerry's Michigan campaign said Monday.

Both Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, oppose gay marriage and say marriage should be limited to a man and a woman. Kerry has said he supports civil unions.

In a recording of a phone call played for The Associated Press, a young woman says: "When you vote this Tuesday remember to legalize gay marriage by supporting John Kerry. We need John Kerry in order to make gay marriage legal for our city. Gay marriage is a right we all want. It's a basic Democrat principle. It's time to move forward and be progressive. Without John Kerry, George Bush will stop gay marriage. That's why we need Kerry. So Tuesday, stand up for gay marriage by supporting John Kerry."

The calls began Sunday afternoon, according to Rodell Mollineau, spokesman for Kerry's Michigan campaign. The campaign said voters in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint and Pontiac received calls.

"We're shocked and pretty much appalled that Republicans would sink to this in the last 48 hours of the campaign," Mollineau said.

Michigan Republican Party executive director Greg McNeilly said recorded phone calls have been made by former Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler and by President Bush to Michigan voters, but he didn't know anything about the calls described by the Kerry campaign.

"There are so many reports of phone calls going on right now that appear to be untoward," McNeilly said.

___

Nickdfresh
11-01-2004, 07:23 PM
Originally posted by FORD
BTW, I only gave Florida to the BCE, because it's obvious with half a dozen different frauds taking place already, it's obvious that Jeb will stop at nothing to fix it for his dumbass brother.

Actually I heard on CNN this morninig that with 7% of the Flordia vote in, Kerry is ahead in early voting despite the Republican's best "keep out the vote" efforts.

FORD
11-02-2004, 09:13 AM
Call 866 687-8683

If Poll Workers refuse you to vote for any reason
If there is a late opening or early closing of a polling place.
If your polling place runs out of ballots or has an incorrect ballot
If you experience poll worker insensitivity or discrimination in the voting process

The civil rights community have set up a toll-free Election Day hotline. This line is
staffed now and, in addition to logging your complaint, the civil rights organizations have law
students and attorneys who can provide assistance on Election Day.

the hotline number is
866 687-8683
202 457-0473 fax

When you call the hotline, be prepared to give your name, telephone number, and note as many
details as possible, including the names of the people who are involved.

Ally_Kat
11-03-2004, 11:34 AM
Man...


e-voting
I voted for the first time in my life today. My exhilaration was short-lived. My boyfriend had voted ealier in the day using a paper ballot, but I had to wait until after work to cast my vote. I was denied a paper ballot AT THAT SAME POLLING LOCATION even though a stack of about 300 blank ones were in plain view. The precinct officer claimed that those were for "emergencies." When I asked her to elaborate, she told me to just go use one of the eslate3000 voting machines manufactured by Harte-InterCivic, a known Republican campaign contributor. I told her I wanted a paper ballot, and she refused to give me one while I watched another individual fill one out. I felt queasy and decided to take down the serial number of my e-voting machine:

A03FFA

I pray that my vote actually makes a difference...


People on Michael Moore's website really need to be given a clue about the different reasons why someone should be given a paper ballot and what emercency ballots are and when they come into play.

Yes sweetheart, those ballots were for "emercencies".